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Mexico City 
An Idler's Note-Book 



Mexico City 

An Idler's Note-Book 

BY 

OLIVE PERCIVAL 




I ; I ; ) ' i ' t i *7 



k.11 II 1 ■ 



Herbert S. Stone and Company 

Eldridge Court, Chicago 

MDCCCCI 



'COPYRIGHT, I9OI, BY 
HERBERT S. STONE & CO 



THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Received 

MAR. 11 1901 

Copyright entry 

CLASS '^XXc. N». 

COPY B. 



* e • • o 
c c • c a 



, • a 
e 

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e a e 



y4 number of these sketches 

originally appeared in 
The lyOS Angeles Times. 



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TO 

MR. G. C. HOLLOWAY 

IN MEMORY OF A FRIENDSHIP 
OF THE WORK-A-DAY WORLD 



FOREWORD 

Such a lot of people have spent 
the day in Mexico and have then 
written books about it. 

My pre-determination was to be 
original. But now that I am come 
back, I too would lay down a little 
wreath— not of stiff, magnificent facts 
and information — merely of tender 
words of appreciation and an inti- 
mate, if forceless, sympathy for some 
of those strange phases of Life in 
the Land of the Noontide Calm. 

Olive Percival. 

Los Angeles, California, 
January i, 1901. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

First Impressions • • . . . 

In the Streets of the City 

The Alameda and Chapultepec 

To the Floating Gardens of Tenochti- 

tlan 

Early Mass and the Flower Market 
At a Mexican Country-House . . ug 

A Street Ramble jc^ 

Personal and Reminiscent . . ,175 



I 
27 

49 

71 
93 



First Impressions 



An Idler's Note-Book 

MEXICO CITY 

( 

FIRST IMPRESSIONS 

I knew ver}^ well how the old, old 
City of Mexico was going to impress 
me. 

There would be splendid churches, 
with long, glittering religious proces- 
sions. There would be acres of cen- 
tury-old palaces, with musicianers by 
the palm-shaded fountains and loung- 
ers in purple and silver. Every front 

3 



4 Mexico City 

yard would be an enchanting tangle 
of aloes and cactus and orchids and 
chocolate trees. 

In every balcony there was sure 
to be a pretty maiden, with a fan 
and a mantilla and a big comb of 
real shell in her blue-black hair. 

In the street below, a masculine 
affinity. 

He, I dreamed, would be tall and 
lightning - eyed, — with a sugar-loaf 
hat, a zarape, a cigarette — he might 
have his guitar. 

And there would be duennas some- 
where and monks in gray and bull- 
fighters in scarlet and tinsel. There 
would be gayly-costumed poor people 
— not many, and all light-hearted, I 
hoped. They would, I presumed, be 
drinking goblets of foamy chocolate 



An Idler's Note-Book 5 

or weaving garlands of flowers with 
which to decorate their water-jars. 

There might be a few gorgeous brig- 
ands, with embroidered jackets and 
silver spurs a- jangle. And (who 
could tell?) there might be a polit- 
ical revolution ! 

Of course I could not be quite 
sure of everything, although my 
hopes were reasonably modern; and, 
as a latter-day pilgrim, I really 
must expect one or two refining dis- 
appointments. Yet there was one 
thing of which I was entirely confi- 
dent. I knew that my first view of 
all those dazzling, enrapturing land- 
scape arrangements would be under 
the bluest-blue sky and in a blind- 
ing white sunshine. 

Therefore, as we rushed through 



6 Mexico City 

blue - green fields of pulque - plants, 
dotted thickly with pre-historic ruins 
and with ancient churches newly 
whitewashed and with sky-bhie rain- 
pools, I preparatively twirled a pair 
of black eye-glasses. 

But alack - a - day ! travelers en- 
counter all the unusual bits of 
weather, and we landed in Mexico 
City (which for long years I had 
loved even as I had adored the 
ancient and wonderful city of Bagh- 
dad) in company with a rain-storm. 

Now this was disheartening, it 
was nearly tragic. I had saved 
particular and high degrees of en- 
thusiasm for that one first moment 
— and, as a legitimate redress, I de- 
sired to postpone my first impres- 
sions until another day. But Fate 



An Idler's Note-Book 7 

was unrelenting. The little clip of 
her merciless old shears sounded 
unwarrantably spiteful. I wanted to 
call aloud. 

Nevertheless, as we drove up into 
the city (with our cabman crying, 
*'Sh! sh! sh!" to the horses, as 
though they were hens), the beauti- 
ful law of compensation was every- 
where in evidence. The crooked old 
streets were veritable pictures. 

Not dazzlingly Oriental, to be 
sure, as they ought to have been, 
but of the French Impressionist 
School, — all muddy grays and browns, 
with streaks of purple shadow and 
splashes of dull pink and yellow. 
Some of the by-ways, where drain- 
age was an impossibility, were very 
good bits of Venice without the 



8 Mexico City 

gondolas; in the courts of many of 
the houses were little lagoons; and 
any one of the palatial old convent 
buildings, facing or backing upon 
those narrow and gloomy streets, 
would have been quite good enough 
for a doge or a Desdemona. 

The narrow sidewalks were cov- 
ered with a fine, even pudding of 
bad -smelling mud; the street-car 
mules and drivers were plastered 
with it and persistently avoided the 
sympathetic eye. The mules seemed 
particularly self-conscious. 

But all at once there was no rain 
— not one drop — a glorious Mexican 
sun was shining and the little lakes 
in the inner courts of the houses 
were mirrors with charming reflec- 
tions. The sun lit up the mossy 



An Idler's Note-Book 9 

tiles of the splendid old church 
domes; it made beautiful shadows 
in the deep doorways and under the 
balconies of the yellow and pink 
stucco houses; it brought out the 
fragrance of the strange flowers in 
the courts, brilliant glimpses of 
which were permitted through medie- 
val entrances, as the carriage poked 
along. Everything was so delight- 
fully clean and fresh and beautiful 
— everything except the Mexic smell. 

The theatric streets were crowded 
with people, but oh! such astonish- 
ingly poor creatures and sorrow- 
ful eyed! They were unspeakably 
depressing. And where could they 
all be going? 

It was not a feast-day, it was too 
early for a bull -fight; I was certain 



lo Mexico City 

. \ 

there had been a fire or a parade — 

possibly a big free-silver rally. But 

in due time it was discovered that 

the congested condition of those 

streets was normal — that it took 

Sunday markets and certain of the 

feast-days to bring out the real 

crowds of Mexico! 

On the muddied sidewalk, with 
their bare feet in the gutter, here 
an there sat a family of well-to-do 
peons — clothed all in white and eat- 
ing a combination breakfast and 
supper of tortillas with chili-sauce 
from a wonderful pottery dish. To 
a newly-arrived gringo, that pottery 
dish and the light in the eyes of 
the brown little children were in- 
deed fascinating. 

Driving slowly lalong and staring 



An Idler's Note-Book ii 

out in a dazed way bordering on 
the state of enchantment, I was 
restored to acute consciousness by 
the sight of a poor little peon stag- 
gering along the slippery cobbles 
with a perfectly immense American 
trunk on his back. 

The wretched little son of Issa- 
char, it was ascertained, carried 
dreadful trunks like that from the 
depot of the Mexican Central to 
the hotel, a distance of about one 
mile and a half, and up two flights, 
for exactly twenty-five cents, Mex. 
Oh! it was horribly unjust, it was 
outrageous — and I was at once and 
for the first time intensely inter- 
ested in socialism, labor-unions, an- 
archy! For if that little beast of 
burden with an immortal soul should 



12 Mexico City 

^ 

slip and fall, he would be crushed, 
horribly crushed. And all for an 
amount not exceeding twelve pieces 
of copper. 

I sat aghast— such a very little 
peon and such a very big trunk! I 
trembled, and was chill with anxiety. 
I yearned for relative human justice. 
I__Oh! may the saints of his parish 
forgive me! That trunk was my 
very own. 

At last, the carriage stopped in 
front of the hotel. 

It was a new one on May the 
Fifth Street, dating only from the 
time of the Emperor Maximilian 
and named for a great and brave 
man, Comonfort. He dealt the death- 
blow to the church as a governing 
power in the State. (That sounds 



An Idler's Note-Book 13 

so much more feasible than is war- 
rantable. It becomes irksome, I am 
sure, even to a great man like Com- 
onfort, to live in the midst of as- 
sassins known and unknown.) Of 
course it was to be regretted that 
this hotel was not a century or 
two old, like most of the others — 
and that it had not been a palace 
or a convent of the inquisition. But 
then, it was near the great cathe- 
dral and the famous old plaza; it 
was not far from the alameda, and 
every immediate prospect therefrom 
was lavish in the matter of mossy 
church-domes and towers. Ah! on 
the other side of that portal with 
the big iron knocker— in that bal- 
conied yet somber -looking building, 
would I find my first home in 



14 \ Mexico City 

Mexico!' Was I to be poisoned in 
my chocolatl? Or stabbed under the 
left shoulder - blade some moonless 
evening, as I walked along the cor- 
ridor? 

There wasn't any riot of tropical 
plants in the patio — it was bare and 
clean. That was a distinct disap- 
pointment. But, it was explained, 
an esteemed patron of the establish- 
ment (An American, to be sure) 
had, after an argument extending 
over a number of years, induced 
the management to dispense with 
the garden of plants in the court — 
and its mosquitoes. This explana- 
tion should have pacified me; I 
should have generously refused to 
cultivate the deep regret that I did 
not precede that particular reform 



An Idler^s Note-Book 15 

and the general introduction of 
electric lights and telegrams and 
bicycles. And especially since I got 
there ahead of telephones and auto- 
mobiles ! 

But, I penitently confess, I always 
regretted that patio. It was so tidy 
and unrom antic. 

The furniture was old and Frenchy 
— some of it may once have be- 
longed to Carlotta herself, but no 
one seemed certain about that. And 
then there were actually two old 
brass candlesticks on the writing- 
desk. I at once realized that every- 
thing was to be perfectly ideal. 
No gas, no lamps, no electric-but- 
tons — ^just a long, gfreen bell-cord 
with a tassel, such as there used 
to be in all the dear old English 



1 6 Mexico City 

novels. Think of the romantic thrill 
to be experienced, when I should 
find it necessary to "ring for can- 
dles" — just as the terribly haughty 
Lady Clarinda did, or the rector's 
gentle daughter ! 

My admiration was extreme for 
those little old candlesticks and 
their short, fat tapers. It was a 
pleasure of many sentiments to 
write letters by their soft and yel- 
low light to persons up in the 
prosaic States. Such are rare mo- 
ments; you lose perfectly your iden- 
tity — you are an enthusiastic com- 
posite of ever so many Revolutionary 
granddames and early- English and 
ante-bellum heroines. 

But, oh! the moral battle I did 
fight during my few weeks' associa- 



An Idler's Note-Book 17 

tion with those old candlesticks! I 
can lift up my head, I can even 
speak of them calmly now — for I 
really didn't steal them. They are 
down there yet, — presuming that the 
next American tourist did not carry 
them off as souvenirs. 

Never, until I knew the old ad- 
ministrador, did I suspect the capac- 
ity for even a latent esteem for a 
hotel-clerk; nor had I dreamed that 
the American -made linen duster was 
especially designed by an aesthetic 
fate to be worn constantly by a 
big, Romanesque Mexican. His slow, 
sad smile was a fascination — Mr. 
Henry Miller himself could not have 
improved on that. Nor on his beau- 
tiful, baritone and almost rever- 
ential, ''Buenos dias^ senorita.''* 



1 8 Mexico City 

The administrador ^ on the occa- 
sion when I stepped fearfully toward 
the key-board in the office, did not 
think to embarass me with any of 
the long and occult remarks not 
included in my handbook of the 
Spanish language. There was merely 
the regulation greeting of the coun- 
try, with innumerable stately bows 
and lordly edicts to the vassals in 
waiting to clear the way — to follow 
after with my umbrella, my camera 
and the few armfuls of old Mexican 
junk, whose possession made my 
heart sing for joy, but at which 
they, poor things, looked almost with 
scorn. 

And then there was such an inter- 
esting chambermaid. His name was 
Mariano, and he was a beautiful 



An Idler's Note-Book 19 

character; but he was so extremely 
plain in the matter of features that 
it saddened one to gaze upon him, 
if a refuter of some of Mr. Dar- 
win's theories. 

My one great ambition in Mexico 
was not to get an audience with 
Diaz, the uncrowned emperor, but 
to have the memory of Mariano's 
face perpetuated in a door-knocker 
to bring back to the States. I never 
expect to see a Japanese grotesque 
with a visage half so fascinating in 
its ugliness. To be sure, I spoke 
the language (learned it going down 
on the train), and so I was the one 
regularly chosen to find fault and 
to order the breakfast, which was 
brought in from a restaurant by 
the little mozo. He would, in re- 



20 Mexico City 

sponse to a jerk on that romantic 
bell-cord, rush in with a humble, 
mournful, ''Buenos dias^ seiiorita," and 
stand awkwardly with his little toil- 
worn hands at position rest. It 
was noticed that he always rushed 
out politely screening a wide smile 
that exploded into unmistakable gig- 
gles — a trifle uncomplimentary to my 
Spanish, which may have resembled 
but remotely the pure Castilian. 
Very likely, I should have hurled 
one of the candlesticks at Mariano's 
head, but Americans are stupid 
about servants. 

May the most generous of the 
saints reward the patient little drudge 
— may Mariano live many years when 
his enemies are dead! 

He broke hand-mirrors, he giggled 



An Idler's Note-Book 21 

(but quite involuntarily) at my col- 
lection of old key-plates and door- 
keys; but he never stole a thing, 
not even the reddest of neckties. 

The azotea^ or flat roof, of the 
hotel, reached by the darkest and 
shakiest corkscrew stairway (I 
searched in vain for a trap-door and 
a secret panel), was the place to 
spend a moonlight evening. 

Just the place to wrap up in a 
Spanish cloak, exactly nine yards 
wide, and to listen to the low thrum 
of a guitar and the singing of gay 
old ballads of love and war. (And 
one there was who deemed it fit and 
proper that an American in the 
present year of grace should sug- 
gest occasional refrains of "Ha! ha! 
ha! Yankee Doodle Dandy!") 



22 Mexico City 

I 

And then, as you thought how 
many old Spanish lords and ladies 
were dead and turned to clay all 
around you, how agreeably sad and 
effective in the quiet night were 
"The Spanish Cavalier" and "La 
Paloma" and "In Old Madrid." 
But, if your American pride was 
particularly rampant and you chose 
to be less sentimental and to take 
a mental leap back to only 1846-47, 
you sang the high -keyed songs your 
grandmother sang, when your grand- 
father came marching home from 
Cerro Gordo. And, possibly, another 
— the strangely fashionable ditty of 
to-day whose title has been trans- 
lated into the polite phrasing of 
the country, as "It Will Be Very 
Warm in the City This Evening." 



An Idler's Note-Book 23 

Then, too, leaning over the para- 
pet, the azotea is just the place for 
dreaming of those old, old days 
when Cortes marched along the 
causeways, the Aztecs tossing down 
flowers from just such a roof. 

That phase of the dream is less 
disquieting than the next — when, 
down upon the heads of those amaz- 
ing adventurers, the same Aztecs 
hurled stones and blazing arrows. 
Oh! thrilling and very romantic is 
the history of the ancient city of 
Tenochtitlan ! What tiresome, unfor- 
givable iconoclasts are they who 
would destroy our faith in the story 
of the conquest according to Pres- 
cott. 

Where those twin towers of the 
old Cathedral rise in the moonlight 



24 Mexico City 

once stood the great pyramid and 
temple to Mexitl, the war-god of 
the Aztecs, daily bespattered with 
human blood. I am near enough 
to have heard the wild chant of 
the red-handed priests and the shriek 
of the victim, as his quivering heart 
was skillfully torn from his breast, 
an offering to a hideous stone image. 
I am almost near enough to have 
heard Cortes haranguing his discon- 
tented men, or poor Montezuma ad- 
dressing his nobles from the parapet 
of his palace-prison. Ah! on this 
little azotea^ one could dream a 
whole star-lit night away and never 
slumber. 

What one does hear is the clatter 
of the cabs over the cobbles below 
— and the occasional shout of some 



An Idler's Note-Book 25 

high-hatted Jehu, muffled in his 
zarape. Then, from near-by bar- 
racks, come "Taps" and ''Lights 



Out." 



In the Streets of the City 



IN THE STREETS OF THE 
CITY 

An expression of thanks is really 
due Mr. Hernando Cortes for hav- 
ing established in Mexico a certain 
valuable precedent. 

Whenever it was insinuated that 
he could not do such and such a 
thing, or whenever it was pre- 
sumptuously stated that he must not 
go to a certain place, that praise- 
worthy and industrious gentleman 
straightway did that thing and made 
a bee-line for that point. 

So, when an American resident of 
Mexico City told me in an ominous 
sort of way that I must not go on 
29 



30 Mexico City 

the street without a chaperone or a 
gentleman escort — and when he an- 
nounced that I could not go alone 
to The Thieves' Market district, I 
in my heart muttered several per- 
verse things. Also I remembered 
my Prescott and finally sallied forth 
— alone. 

What girl of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, with the dignity of America 
in her keeping, is going to conform 
to an old unwritten law of some 
other country and one never framed 
for her kind? And, too, when her 
time is limited? Foolhardiness is 
not exactly commendable, even in a 
Yankee; but Mexico is the best 
policed city on the continent, and I 
had no pockets — for years and years 
past, I had had no pockets. What 




A Street Scene 



An Idler's Note-Book 31 

was there to fear? It is only the 
disdainful foreigner with nose aloft 
who finds the disagreeables. 

Sometimes chaperones insist upon 
frittering away immensely valuable 
time in easy chairs in the hotel 
parlor. But had I journeyed to 
Mexico for the one excitement of 
counting and recounting dreary fig- 
ures in the wall-hanging? Was my 
acquaintance with one of the en- 
chanting cities of the world to be 
limited to a balcony view and an 
occasional "personally conducted" 
promenade? 

Alas! I had discovered disadvan- 
tages in masculine escorts. Not all 
of them are satisfactorily civil when 
you are pleased to stop short and 
stare at things not in the guide- 



32 Mexico City 

book, the stupid guide-book; or when 
you desire to scrape acquaintance 
with some dirty little beggar or an 
interesting old dulce-woman. 

Such painful revelations in a strange 
land finally induced me to defend 
and to sympathize with myself. 

Yet, with all the bravery of my 
argument and my convictions, I 
usually left the hotel on my soli- 
tary tramps quite unceremoniously. 
But my returnings therefrom were 
openly triumphant — unkidnapped, un- 
pickpocketed and laden with price- 
less memorabilia in the way of old 
handwrought iron and blue crockery 
and brass candlesticks and rosaries 
with big, pendant medals. 

That radiant hour was not the 
proper one to confess that many 



An Idler's Note-Book 33 

times I got lost in those streets 
that changed their names every 
block and that the policemen's direc- 
tions were in Spanish far too rapid 
to be of assistance to one of my 
understanding and pride. 

There would have been no justice 
in complaining that I was much 
stared at by the inhabitants, for I 
stared so much longer at them; and 
then, too, they were always good 
enough to explain to each other 
that I, a strange being, was an 
American, and that explains much 
in Mexico. I was discreet, being in 
the minority — I admired openly, but 
I veiled any astonishment at things 
unconventional from my little point 
of view. Once, once only, in my 
solitary ramblings, I found just 



34 Mexico City 

cause for alarm, and that was when, 
in a wretched street and on the 
narrowest of pavements, I unexpect- 
edly met a beggar. He was e\nl- 
looking ami dnink with pulque. 
But lo! he immediately flattened 
himself against the building, with 
a polite, "Pass on, young lady," 
and did not push me into the 
horrid mud-puddle of the street as 
I had so greatly feared. 

No one was ever rude, and many 
were friendly. I never repented my 
imitation of the Cortes method of 
seeing the countiy. 

And so it came to pass that I 
lodged under a roof and generally 
ate expensive food — but I forgot the 
pattern of the w:ill-hanging and I 
lived in the streets of the city. 



An Idler's Note-Book 35 

Not so very far away from the 
glittering shops of San Francisco 
Street, and very near the famous 
Alameda and Paseo de la Reforma, 
you will find the city's poor. Not 
all of them, but enough and in con- 
ditions so deplorable that a person 
of keen sympathies speculates as to 
the possibility of ever smiling again 
in this life while the memory of 
that poverty shall endure. 

It is the hideous variety that 
knows no hope. 

But it is a pleasure to walk with- 
out haste and to studjT- the build- 
ings as, in the day when they were 
new, men builded so well. I stand 
and look long and rapturously. 

They are principally old convents, 
gloomy and damp, converted into 



36 Mexico City 

tiny shops and over-crowded tene- 
ments; the walls soft grays and yel- 
lows, with deep windows irregularly 
placed and of varied forms. Then 
there are always little surprises, — a 
niche high up near the cornice with 
an old weather-worn statue, or a 
unique door-knocker or balcony-rail, 
or a bit of splendid ornament over a 
window — sometimes two richly-carved 
doors, fit for an Old- World palace. 

Yes, one block in perspective of 
any of those narrow, old streets 
would drive an artist paint mad. 
The poor Slave of the Camera 
merely wails and loathes himself 
and his art. 

All this is the effective back- 
ground for certain picturesque types 
of humanity. Humanity in rags is 



An Idler's Note-Book 37 

so extremely picturesque. It is fre- 
quently hungry and sullen, too. 
Very likely, one would not pity the 
poor of Mexico City so much, were 
they inclined to be a trifle social- 
istic; but in their eyes you see only 
the unresented suffering of centuries, 
— a hopelessness not to be forgotten. 
When you walk delightedly in 
some magnificent garden, such as a 
millionaire Spaniard knew how to 
beautify and maintain; when you are 
supping at some grand old villa at 
Tacubaya; when you are marveling 
at the splendor of the interior deco- 
rations of a dozen near-by churches; 
— then unpleasing flashes of recol- 
lection will obtrude themselves, and 
you are sure to have an uncomfort- 
able moment or two, if you trouble 



38 Mexico City 

to contrast the magnificence and the 
misery of Mexico City. 

There on the pavement sits a vil- 
lage woman rolling a cigarette. Nine 
brass rings with settings of glass 
decorate just four of her slim, brown 
fingers. 

But was it so very, very long ago 
that, to many of us, all that was 
magnificent and desirable in the 
way of jewels was represented by a 
prize-box ring, with its bit of ruby 
or sapphire glass on top? The years 
have improved our taste in Art, but 
they have taken away the superb 
content of childhood. So there is 
no depreciation in our smile for the 
Aztec woman with the charming 
rings and the little girl's heart. 



An Idler's Note-Book 39 

Her half-naked son, under an um- 
brella-like hat, stands behind her 
and timidly clutches her gown. They 
have lugged a stock of pottery to 
market, — four water- jugs and a small 
basket of glazed green and brown 
mugs. For some of their things they 
may get twelve cents — maybe only 
five. Prices in Mexican markets are 
quite as uncertain as the favor of a 
politician. 

One young man, of perhaps eleven, 
thinks it ridiculous to photograph 
old worm-eaten doors and balconies. 

He gives a little whoop to attract 
my attention, takes off his hat with 
a "See me, young lady," and charit- 
ably allows me to get his likeness. 

He is of the generation that will 



40 Mexico City 

favor gringoes and their cameras 
and their railroads. 



High - hatted country gentlemen, 
barefooted, with bell-shaped trousers 
fitting like a mousquetaire glove, 
and with gorgeous zarapes over their 
shoulders, file past. A quiet, serious 
procession until they get into one of 
those little shops where, back of 
the counter, you see such a fasci- 
nating array of blue and white 
bowls, — and where the sour smell is 
superlative. That's a pulqueria^ a 
Mexican saloon. 

The fat old senora sitting in that 
pink doorway is a dulce-seller, her 
last patron was that soft-eyed, very 
brown girl in a chemise and ragged 



An Idler's Note-Book 41 

petticoat only. Every one eats dulces 
(sweets) in Mexico, so I recklessly 
squander three cents with the lady. 
It is my nineteenth experiment in 
the Mexican dulce line, few of which 
I regret — none of which I confess 
to my fastidious friend of the Amer- 
ican Colony. The native crystallizes 
nearly everything edible. Crystal- 
lized squash and sweet potato are 
offered to you in long, clear bars — 
resembling in appearance a high 
grade of glycerine soap. Then there 
are sweets made of milk and of 
pecan nuts and of cocoanut and of 
tuna-juice and of spices — of every- 
thing nice except chocolate — which 
is a disappointment, after reading 
such a lot of books about the Aztecs 
and their choclatl. 



42 Mexico City 

I desire to file a protest some- 
where when, in the most unexpected 
old corner I discover a very pictur- 
esque native selling American chew- 
ing-gum and nile-green gum-drops. 
How immeasurably sad are such in- 
novations! Why doesn't he sell pines 
or alligator pears? Or opals and 
corals? Why does he grin and pause, 
expectant, for a Yankee's look of 
approval? 

Women with babies tied on their 
backs with their rebozos stop and 
gossip vivaciously. 

The babies are thin and sad-eyed 
little things, pitiably silent. Nega- 
tively, you learn to be glad that 
Aztec families are small, that the 
death-rate in Mexico City is second 
to Constantinople only. 



An Idler's Note-Book 43 

It is delightful to see two grown- 
up men meet and embrace after the 
fashion of the country. They rush 
melodramatically into each other's 
arms, each throws his right arm 
around the other and delightedly 
pats him on the left shoulder-blade, 
while he kisses him enthusiastically 
on both cheeks. It is worth being 
nearly run down by a cab, witness- 
ing this custom de la pais; it is really 
difficult to refrain from applause. 



The lottery-ticket venders, old and 
young, male and female, are ubiqui- 
tous and persistent. Lotteries in 
Mexico are government institutions, 
and eminently respectable. But I 
virtuously save my coppers for ex- 



44 Mexico City 

periments in ices and dukes and 
limonadas. 

How can I believe in lotteries 
and raffles, when I always draw 
blanks? 

Then there are men with fiat 
baskets of fruit on their heads, push- 
ing through the crowds and shriek- 
ing as though in an agony, their 
tenor voices thick with tears. What 
a relief to learn they are only cry- 
ing, "Grapes! grapes!" 

That slim, brown woman in white 
cotton chemise, neutral petticoat and 
blue rebozo closely drawn, looks as 
though her proper background would 
be a sphinx and a pyramid, with a 
camel and a palm-tree. She is very 



An Idler's Note-Book 45 

Egyptianesque. But, instead of a 
water-jar on her head, she has a 
pulque-jug in her hand, and her 
destination is the pulqueria under 
the sign of The Pearly Portal. 

There in the gutter stands a 
young man of about fifteen, eating 
a taco (which is a fried turn -over, 
filled with chopped, highly-seasoned 
meats — I once purchashed one in a 
briefly seductive cook-shop) and chat- 
ting with a pretty little girl, of 
perhaps twelve, with a baby on her 
hip. The little girl is his wife, ac- 
cording to another ancient unwrit- 
ten law of Mexico, and that baby 
is his son and heir. It makes my 
conscience heavy to stop within range 
of their affectionate chatter and to 



46 Mexico City 

photograph her with that pretty 
love-light in her j^oung eyes. How 
happy they are — yet are they both 
bare-footed and but moderately clean; 
and his dinner of one taco she car- 
ries to him in the street! Is happi- 
ness accidental? 

It is not edifying to stop and 
gape at the poverty of these people 
in the tenements — huddled together 
in one small, dark room — damp and 
unventilated, bare of all furnishings 
except a tortilla-board, a charcoal- 
dish and some pottery jugs and 
bowls. How can they keep warm, 
or well, or clean or good? Youths, 
maidens, men, women, old people, 
babies, — diseased and otherwise. 
Privacy in the home and morality 



An Idler's Note-Book 47 

as revealed to us are, perforce, 
unknown. They do not theorize, 
their lives know so many tragedies 
in the struggle for primitive crea- 
ture-comforts. Ah! one feels con- 
strained to write them all down in 
a big "book of pity and of death." 

Such, alas! is the present state of 
many of the children of the mighty 
Montezuma's warriors! A brave, 
patient, capable people — in their 
own land and hopeless! 



The Alameda and Chapultepec 



THE ALAMEDA AND CHAPUL- 
TEPEC 

I had always listened with un- 
certain patience and no enthusiasm 
to the extravagant praises of other 
people regarding The Alameda of 
Mexico City. 

Undoubtedly, in its way, The 
Alameda was a charming little 
park, but we had parks at home in 
the United States, and I had seen 
most of the big ones. I knew it 
was unsafe to walk even at high 
noon through The Alameda, for fear 
of robbers and kidnappers, who 
would hold you for ransom — send- 
ing slices of your ears to insure 

51 



52 Mexico City 

expedition on the part of your 
friends. But that was twenty-five 
years ago — there were no bandits 
there now. Why should I rhapsodize? 

That was before I had explored 
The Alameda and had walked 
through that delightsome place from 
corner to corner. Afterward, when- 
ever it looked like rain and my 
friends became concerned about me, 
they went direct to The Alameda. 

The guide-book will tell you that 
it is a park of about forty acres, and 
that the grandees of Mexico walk 
and drive there when the band 
plays. All of which is as dry as 
dust to one who confesses to the 
spell of Mexic enchantment that 
binds even an unwilling American, 
the moment the musicianers begin 



An Idler's Note-Book 53 

to pipe under that turquoise sky and 
in the tender gloom of the mighty 
trees that arch high, high above 
you in The Alameda. 

I suppose there were wonderfully 
rare plants in the tropical tangle 
along those broad, curving walks; 
I suppose all those fountains cost 
mines of money; I suppose some 
of those people were the multi-mil- 
lionaires of Mexico. 

But of course I did not notice 
such things — hardly flower-boys and 
dulce-women — until the music stopped. 

Mexican music in Mexico is so 
seductive, so full of subtle, minor 
harmonies; you feel impelled to 
weep your life away to the strains 
of it. 

Wagner tires — sublimity always 



54 Mexico City 

brings weariness, and the flawless 
beauty of your favorite sonatas and 
nocturnes sometimes cloys. It really 
is, as Lamartine has said, pathos 
alone that is infallible in art. 

But of course you don't cry — fine 
poetic frenzies are not so expressed 
nowadays; it would look merely like 
hysteria. So, under the awning of 
the principal promenade, you sit up 
very straight indeed (as an American 
girl should, in a country where most 
of the women are round-shouldered) ; 
and, with that enravishing music in 
your ears, you stare disappointedly 
at the fashionable world of Mexico 
in Paris and Vienna hats and gowns. 
The foreign ministers and the Amer- 
ican Colony also kindly pass in re- 
view before you. 



An Idler's Note-Book 55 

One of your companions knows 
them all and gives you the reasons 
accepted by an interested public for 
the permanent residence in Mexico 
of some of the Colony. 

But very soon, all this procession 
— with its setting of tropic plants and 
trees, with the green gloom thereof 
for a lime-light and the Mexican 
band for an orchestra — resolves itself 
into just one of those big spectac- 
ular dramas; a troop of clever 
mummers, a little dash of society 
business, — expensively staged, weari- 
some — and a sorrowful lot of trage- 
dians yearning to play light comedy. 

You do not throw your ten -cent 
bouquet of exquisite roses and for- 
get-me-nots into the midst of them, 
for the music ceases suddenly, and 



56 Mexico City 

you are speedily restored to an 
every-day frame of mind. 

Then you begin to notice things 
in a rational way. 

The poor people, too, were in 
evidence there in The Alameda — 
they are always with you in Mexico. 

They stood in silent groups, far 
from the parade of fashion, and 
listened solemnly to the music. 
The men, in trousers and blouses 
of white cotton, with shabby, high- 
crowned hats and with their small 
feet in pitiable excuses for sandals, 
— were the impressively calm and 
dignified figures of all that crowd. 

But, alack-a-day! the zarapes over 
their shoulders were not the richly- 
colored, hand-woven little blankets I 
had hoped to get by the dozen. 



An Idler's Note-Book 57 

They were generally American fac- 
tory productions, quite too lively in 
coloring for even a sleigh-robe; as 
table or couch covers, they were 
simply impossible — one could never 
live in the same house with such 
color combinations. 

Oh! if all the aniline dyes in the 
world were only at the bottom of 
the polar sea ! 

The prettiest drive in Mexico City 
is out to Chapultepec Hill. The 
road leading thereto, bordered with 
trees and opening at the end of 
The Alameda, was built by the 
order of Carlotta; once it was called 
The Mad Woman's as well as The 
Empress' Drive. And that wasn't 
so very long ago, yet to-day it is 



58 Mexico City 

known only as the Paseo de la 
Reforma, one of the beautiful drives 
of the world. 

At the beginning of the Paseo is 
a big old bronze statue of Charles 
IV, once said to be one of the 
two finest equestrian statues; so I 
tried to like it. But the tail of the 
horse is too long and it mars the 
effect from three sides — and then 
the figure itself flatters Charles (I 
never did like him) so unreason- 
ably. That portrait of his in the 
National Museum may have mo- 
mentarily disturbed the self-com- 
placency of his majesty. Whoever 
he was, the painter was a daring 
realist. 

At the end of the Paseo is the 
solitary hill — the royal hill — of Cha- 



All Idler's Note-Book 59 

pultepec, with a castle and a palace 
for a crown. Montezuma's most 
splendid residence was there — at 
least we chose to believe that it 
was — and there before him had lived 
his magnificent ancestors, maybe. 
In that day, the waters of Lake 
Tezcuco plashed at the base of the 
hill, but the lake has rippled away 
forever, and to-day soldiers of the 
Mexican republic stand there on 
guard. 

The road winds and winds up 
the hill, between ancient and mighty 
trees, with a delightsome under- 
growth of ferns and vines and 
many sorts of unfamiliar greenery. 
It was easy to remember Montezuma 
and Maximilian in the gloom of 
those cypresses, bearded with Span- 



6o Mexico City 

ish moss, and to ponder on the 
events of the past five or six hun- 
dred years, witnessed by those rocks 
and by those gnarled old trees. 

But it wasn't cheerful. It made 
me much gayer, comparatively, to 
look straight up that steep, steep 
hillside and to think how brave 
Scott's men were to even attempt 
to climb it that morning in Septem- 
ber, '47. But of course they got to 
the top, a little historical fact that 
I recall with proper satisfaction on 
several occasions while in Mexico. 

The President of the Mexican re- 
public (one of the mighty men of 
the last century-end) was then at 
the Palace of Chapultepec. This was 
a very great inconvenience to us, 
but no one else seemed to mind, 



An Idler's Note-Book 6i 

and so we had to be magnanimous 
and make a pretence of being- con- 
tent with seeing the old castle, now 
a military college. 

I had seen the Maximilian silver 
in the museum and all the other 
relics — I had hoped to see the very 
rooms of the palace where poor 
Carlotta had lived that famous chap- 
ter of her sadly unique life. But I 
didn't. 

Our permit to see Chapultepec, a 
tiny card from the National Palace 
and bedight with yards and yards 
of military red tape, was in the 
course of time delivered into the 
hands of a young and good-looking 
lieutenant of artillery — who could, 
we joyously discovered, speak intel- 
ligible English to four ladies at once. 



62 Mexico City 

He showed us through scientific - 
smelling class-rooms and through 
mess-rooms and dormitories and 
armories and gymnasia. 

It was all very progressive and 
very dull. 

By the time we reached the 
library, it was lined to the frieze 
with books bound in russia of the 
bravest scarlet, we were glad to 
rest. It is just possible that regu- 
lar sight-seeing is as fatiguing as 
shopping or scrubbing or golf. 

So, quite unmindful of the Jehu 
and his hire on the other side of 
the big gates, we were listlessly 
looking at ambitious drawings by 
Mexican cadets and military books 
with colored pictures in them when, 
with no premonition whatever, we 



An Idler's Note-Book 63 

made the important discovery that 
our guide and lieutenant, a Spanish- 
Mexican, could joke in English. In 
idiomatic English! To be sure, we 
had to pay strict attention and we 
had to laugh encouragingly during 
all the pauses; but, ethnologically, 
it was extremely interesting. 

After a time our prodigy got down 
the list to that tiresome joke about 
the standing army of the United 
States of America. Fancy having 
to listen to that alleged joke — under 
the roof of Chapultepec Castle and 
in the year 1899! And to the state- 
ment that Americans were just a 
lot of prize-fighters and football- 
players ! 

It was a dreadful shock — to one 
just from the States and posted 



64 Mexico City 

on war-news up to within a fort- 
night. 

But then it had been catalogued 
as a joke and was an old favorite 
in high circles in Europe; there- 
fore I promptly laughed — faintly. 
In Mexico it isn't lady -like to con- 
tradict — so I merely requested the 
Lieutenant to admit that we put 
up a pretty good game; when I felt 
stronger I ventured to inquire if 
there had been a really good bull- 
fight in town lately. And then we 
all laughed and the tension lessened. 

Then we looked at more picture- 
books, and we made fun of the 
French and of the Germans, and we 
became very good international 
friends indeed. Out in the court- 
yard, at the foot of a statue I per- 



An Idler's Note-Book 65 

sisted in believing was a little 
compliment to George Washington, 
the lieutenant favored us with an 
example of the American volunteer 
at drill. 

It wasn't so particularly funny 
but we laughed politely; for didn't 
we know that once upon a time 
General Winfield Scott took a few 
volunteers quite as awkward on a 
tour through Mexico? And they 
really did nicely. 

Had the lieutenant ever heard 
about that? Or about a ship called 
**The Maine"? And a Yankee by 
the name of '* Dewey"? 

The panorama of the great Val- 
ley of Mexico, as seen from Cha- 
pul tepee Hill, is said to be the fin- 
est in the world. It may be; but, 



66 Mexico City 

minus its associative charm, I could 
name two landscapes in Southern 
California as worthy rivals. We 
stood there near the parapet and 
looked away — away — and thought of 
many things, including the advis- 
ability of our lingering until twi- 
light in some shady by-path that 
we might meet the ghost of Marina. 
I didn't think much about Monte- 
zuma or Maximilian; I dreamed 
dreams about Carlotta and her jewels 
and her balls and her fetes. How 
magnificent her dinner-table must 
have looked, decked in all that silver 
now in the museum. Poor Car- 
lotta! The wife of a barefooted 
peon was happier; she was just a 
queen, with wealth and power and 
a crown of sorrow. 



An Idler's Note-Book 67 

And then I wondered what Juarez 
gave Seward for breakfast that time 
when he was the guest of the new 
Mexican republic. I hope his cho- 
colate was not as thick as mud with 
sugar and cinnamon. 

At the big gates of the castle, 
at the beginning of a charming 
flower-garden blue with myosotis, 
we said our farewells to the lieu- 
tenant. He had spoken our own 
language; he had, in an unexpected 
fashion, broken the monotony of 
sight-seeing. "We were particularly 
and forever obliged to him. Then 
as we began to back out at the 
gates, still bowing and exchanging 
compliments and regrets, he gave 
unto each of us as a remembrancer 



68 Mexico City 

a lovely brass button of the artil- 
lery. Who would have dreamed of 
finding such a thoughtful and strictly 
up-to-date soldier in old Chapulte- 
pec Castle, Mexico? 

It is said (and it is going to take 
long years to live down the repu- 
tation) that American tourists take 
flower-gardens, or paving-stones, or 
wall-decorations — anything not chained 
— as souvenirs. Perhaps that is why 
the lieutenant and his subaltern, 
with lifted caps, stood at the gates 
and watched us until a turn in the 
road hid the carriage. 

He made an effective picture, with 
that castle and palace and so much 
history behind him. 

How did he ever dare to be light- 
hearted? 



An Idler's Note-Book 69 

Days of peace, long life to our 
acquaintance of a little summer hour! 
And long live the Mexican Army! 



To the Floating Gardens of 
Tenochtitlan 



TO THE FLOATING GARDENS 
OF TENOCHTITLAN 

Of course they don't float now- 
aday — it was very disappointing. Is 
there one thing left for the modern 
pilgrim to discover, aside from the 
fact that he arrived on this spin- 
ning planet quite too late to see 
anything worth while? 

Everywhere the guide and the 
guide-book and the oldest inhabitant 
conspire against your enthusiasm, 
gloomily assuring you that this and 
that are hardly worth looking at 
now; they are not what they once 
were. No, indeed! You come too 
late! ^ 

73 



74 Mexico City 

It is discouraging, but it is not 
worth wrangling about. 

The better way is to assume the 
look apologetic, and, while the little 
fox of vexation gnaws and gnaws, 
to show everybody how amiable and 
how appreciative of trifles such an 
unreasonably tardy traveler can be. 
Try the other plan — be supercilious 
or become a party to their depre- 
ciation, disparaging all you see and 
bragging about what you have seen 
elsewhere, and you will promptly 
meet with disaster. 

He is unworthy the cockled hat, 
the pilgrim shoon, who cannot smile 
and look enthusiastic in all lan- 
guages ; he should travel only through 
the medium of books, by his own 
little fireside. 



An Idler's Note-Book 75 

So we sweetly gave ear to the 
regulation lament and apology for 
the weather, the time of year and 
the era itself, and, discovering that 
in this instance we were only a few 
hundred years and exactly seven 
months too late, we resignedly agreed 
to squander an afternoon in seeing 
the Floating Gardens that had ceased 
to float, and sundry other things, 
presumably not in the least worth 
while. 

Our boatman is, oh! such a sad- 
eyed, suddenly-smiling boy of about 
thirteen; our boat sufficiently prim- 
itive to delight the most unreason- 
able of antiquarians. Now I can 
tell a bark from a brig, and a brig 
from a brigantine (that is, if it is 
at the end of the summer and the 



76 Mexico City 

coach lias boon patient), yet I can- 
not demonstrate the difference be- 
iwcon a i^ondola and this Aztec 
canoe; neither can I make plain the 
resoinblanee. vot there is a resem- 
blance. 

And the very same thini; in boats, 
be it known, was in voi^ue lon^^- be- 
fore the A:-,teo oracles Tnentioned 
the Coni|uerors. 

It is very beantifnl to look along" 
this narrow ribbon of water, bro- 
caded with the wavy retlection of 
the tall, slim trees aloiv;" the banks. 
Hut there are momen.ts of anxiety. 
Vou have no eravini^ for death in 
foreign parts and in a canal — yet 
that very fate seems inevitable, the 
Stream is so crowded with m.irket- 



An Idler's Note-Book ^^ 

boats and pleasure-boats and house- 
boats — all gliding silently and very 
swiftly down with the current to 
the city. The boatmen stand in 
front, unconcerned, immovable; it is 
not until the last instant that our 
little man gives a skillful lateral 
push with his pole and annihilation 
is averted. 

It isn't lovely, but it is necessary 
to flatten one's self on the bottom 
of the boat when we come to these 
low, stone bridges, the like of which 
I haven't seen for years and then 
inside an old drawing-book. The 
boy propels us under by pushing 
scientifically on the mossy stones of 
the arch with the soles of his bare 
feet, as he lies on the flat of his 
back in the bottom of the boat. 



78 Mexico City 

Everything under the Mexican 
sun pertaining to the Viga Canal 
is distractingly picturesque. I think 
of all the clever paintings I have 
seen of Venice and Holland and 
China and wonder why, as an in- 
spiration, the Viga is not equal to 
any of them. 

Here comes a pleasure-boat of 
young men and maidens, gay with 
the Mexican colors, for only two 
days have passed since the birthday 
of President Diaz. They stop their 
song to laugh at the prospect of 
crashing into our humble, undeco- 
rated little craft — and I hastily re- 
view the rules for resuscitation after 
drowning. On they come, nearer, 
nearer and more swiftly; but the 
boatmen of the Viga are really to 




Sunlight and Shadow 



An Idler's Note-Book 79 

be relied upon — at the last fraction 
of the last minute. So another col- 
lision is averted. 

Oh! if I wink just once some 
detail of the constantly changing 
picture is sure to be lost. If I 
look at that long, narrow vegetable - 
boat — it must be a hundred feet 
long — piled with such dreadfully 
commonplace but delightfully colored 
things as cabbages and radishes and 
pumpkin-blossoms and beets and let- 
tuce, I am sure to miss the picture 
of that snowy-robed woman walking 
along the bank with a water-jug on 
her head; or of those two bare- 
footed, laughing young lovers, saunter- 
ing along on the other bank, hand 
in hand, and stopping occasionally for 
him to kiss her smooth, brown cheeks. 



8o Mexico City 

Very probably, the great Cortes 
looked upon all these things when, 
as Montezuma's unwelcome and un- 
snubbable guest, he rode along this 
causeway, noting with astonishment 
the animation of the Viga. It was 
an old, old waterway even then. 
Possibly the great canal of China 
is no older. 

We are following in the wake of 
some empty flower-boats returning 
from the city markets. The bare- 
footed, high-hatted men are pushing 
the big, clumsy things upstream, 
shouting occasionally to acquaint- 
ances taking a holiday along the 
banks. It's beautiful to see these 
peons evince an individuality, and 
somehow it's surprising. 

A little hamlet of pink and white 



An Idler's Note-Book 8i 

stucco houses, charmingly mirrored 
in the sluggish gray water, — then 
our boat glides along through a 
tangle of water-weeds and past a 
fringe of willows, right into a swarm 
of little bathers. 

Their clothes must be on the bank 
somewhere, but, unmindful, they 
stand in the shallow water and 
frankly stare at us just as the 
cherubs in the art gallery did. 

Down in Mexico one so frequently 
chances upon animate bronzes bereft 
of drapery and pedestal and cata- 
logue number. I recall a certain 
admirable piece, not an antique, that 
was discovered one afternoon in a 
dim street of an out-of-the-way vil- 
lage. I did not overtake him, but 
in that little back was shown in- 



82 Mexico City 

comparable grace of movement. And, 
too, such beauty of form and model- 
ing! Ah, yes! it was quite plain 
from that unknown piece of Mexican 
bronze that even Donatello himself 
could be surpassed. 

We stop at some tiny villages to 
see the old churches and a sad, 
lichen-spotted chapel. What inde- 
fatigable church-builders those early 
Spaniards were! Did it make them 
easier of conscience? They of this 
generation have been good, — they 
have not removed the ancient land- 
marks which their forefathers did 
set, but alas! many of them they 
have defaced with whitewash, an 
accursed sky-blue whitewash! It is 
dreadful but pitiable. 

At Santa Anita we take a canoe 



An Idler's Note-Book 83 

for the Floating Gardens. Gondolas 
and Spanish galleons and Chinese 
junks and birch-bark canoes are all 
perfectly delightful to dream about, 
but one should know intimately the 
canoe of these chinampas. Such a 
dear little boat, such a trim, slim 
little arrow of a boat — about two 
feet by eighteen, I think; and then 
there are two statuesque boatmen, 
zaraped, high-hatted and barefooted, 
to stand at either end and push us 
about the Gardens. 

Dear! dear! It will never do to 
confess disappointment at finding the 
famous old Floating Gardens of 
Tenochtitlan to be mere plats of 
green, with flowers and trees and 
vegetables, — and just separated by 
strips of water like irrigation -ditches 



84 Mexico City 

and along which our little boat is 
pushed ! 

Of course I hadn't expected the 
Gardens to float, but I had expected 
them to be top-heavy with gorgeous 
tropical flowers and thickets of 
palm-trees and clumps of tree-ferns 
with parrots in them. 

Or maybe just a cactus, with an 
eagle aloft and a snake — a very, 
very little one! 

I am not content with pulling 
daisies and the lilac-colored *'lily of 
the country," as we squeeze in be- 
tween the little old gardens — many 
of them, alas! planted to horrid 
cabbages. I am not content, even 
when one of the boatmen lands and 
picks bits of crimson and pink which 
verily prove to be wild poppies. 



An Idler's Note-Book 85 

My shattered illusions might mag- 
nanimously be forgotten did he heap 
the canoe with those exquisite silken 
things. But he brings only a care- 
less handful. 

Then the other boatman noncha- 
lantly pulls a lily-bud with a yard 
of stem. He turns his back, he 
touches it with his magic brown 
fingers, and presto! he holds before 
us a beautiful, beautiful necklace 
like unto one of clear jade beads — 
with an ivory lily-bud for a pen- 
dant. 

On gala-days hundreds and hun- 
dreds of years ago, so reads the 
story, the maids of Aztec Land 
bound wreaths of poppies about 
their dark tresses — and, around their 
necks, they wore wonderful neck- 



86 Mexico City 

laces exactly like this one our boat- 
man has made so cleverly. Oh! is 
it to be mine? I am mute with 
apprehension as he silently hands it 
to the Chief Escort ; my heart refuses 
to beat until the Chaperone has de- 
clined to wear the slimy thing — 
then I am proud to rescue it from 
the bottom of the boat and to drop 
it ecstatically over my head and 
about my neck. The famous emer- 
alds of Cortes could make me no 
happier. 

Now am I enabled to shake off 
the mental malaria and to see ap- 
preciatively the beauty of these ro- 
mantic old chinampas, as we push 
in and about them until the sun 
sets. 

Some one confesses a thirst, so 



An Idler's Note-Book S7 

we land and pulque is brought to 
us in charming, highly-glazed brown 
pots. There are bold strokes of red 
and orange on the western sky, and 
against it are silhouetted the tall 
and slender water-beeches. It is the 
tranquil hour of day, the hour for 
serious meditation, — so I sit apart 
and wonder about many things be- 
yond the sunset. 

And why on earth I (the daughter 
of a line of sturdy pie-eaters) can- 
not manage to drink pretty, pink 
pulque! But I can't! I can't! Even 
when I nearly forget its odor. 

Then I begin a desperate flirta- 
tion with a dear little maiden of 
four. She lives in a hut of rushes 
on the edge of the stream, and her 
dark eyes are deep and trustful and 



88 Mexico City 

•her gurgle of laughter is very en 
joy able music. 

We walk on, past primitive houses 
and primitive man. The girls of the 
village are grouped effectively in 
the plazuelas. So extremely pictur- 
esque are they, with their costumes 
differing only in color, that one 
presently believes the chorus of an 
opera has strayed hither. 

Nothing seems real, due of course 
to the magic necklace. Not even 
the supper we have in a bower, in 
front of one of the little rush huts, 
and where a barefooted lady (attired 
in a blue skirt and a white chemise, 
with a very pink neck-fixing) serves 
us pulque and pink, sweet tomales. 
Likewise little bunches of minnows, 
wrapped in cornhusks and roasted in 



An Idler's Note-Book 89 

the ashes and served cold — very cold 
indeed. The Chief Escort politely 
expresses a preference for warm 
minnows, and is sweetly assured by 
the hostess that hot fish is injurious. 

Then two musicians come and 
bow themselves into our bower and 
play the most dreamy, melancholy 
things on the harpo and bandolin. 
And then all the relatives and friends 
and neighbors of our hostess softly 
come and wedge themselves in and 
about the arbor; and a very, very 
big Mexican, with a high look and 
his face shadowed by an enormous 
hat (he must be the swell of the 
village) comes and silently blockades 
the flowery doorway. 

No one speaks, not even when 
the musicians rest ; there is no sound 



90 Mexico City 

but the distant cry of the boatmen 
and of children at play in the twi- 
light. A white moon comes up and 
sheds a theatric sort of light, and 
the sorrowful -eyed musicianers play 
soft, strange airs that enable one to 
see and think most extraordinary 
things. 

But very abruptly the spell ended. 
I did not lose the magic necklace, 
neither did I break it; thus it hap- 
pened. 

In a moment most shockingly ab- 
stracted, it seems I made use of 
such a phrase as, "Good night, boat- 
man," — and very properly the ex- 
ceeding great wrath of the Chief 
Escort was straightway upon me and 
I was obliged to at once wake up 



An Idler's Note-Book 91 

and to identify myself with the nine- 
teenth century. It would have been 
in unquestioned good taste, had I 
merely sworn at the man — I would 
have been a high-bred lady, I would. 
But to have addressed him, a boat- 
man, civilly — Caramba! 

I promptly hated the Chief Es- 
cort, and I counted forty-three times 
very inaccurately. And I was busy 
for a long time after that, thanking 
God for having been born an Amer- 
ican with a contempt for such a 
thing as caste. 

But it was such a rude and such 
an inartistic awakening! And the 
spirit of the Aztec princesses had 
permanently fled; I could not, on 
the long, long way back into the 
city, conjure up the consciousness 



92 Mexico City 

of even one ordinary Indian maid 
with a poppy wreath on her head. 
And then it began to rain drearily, 
and I was — homesick ! 

Oh! such little bits of things make 
or mar a day, or a life. I have 
forgiven the Chief Escort, but I 
shall forget to forget. 

In the heat and light of the can- 
dles the magic necklace quickly 
faded, and I hung it, mourning, on 
a peg above the writing-desk. It 
was a charming and a refined fancy 
of some pagan aesthete wandering 
about the Floating Gardens in the 
long ago. It was an heirloom of 
the ages. And as such I prized it. 



Early Mass and the Flower Market 



EARLY MASS AND THE 
FLOWER MARKET 

Life, we are told, is full of griev- 
ous hardships. I chanced upon one 
of them down in Mexico. 

Getting up before day and dress- 
ing "by yellow candle-light" reads 
sweetly — Stevenson's child probably 
enjoyed it; but the reality in a 
cellar-like hotel, before the mozo 
and the chocolate-maker are up, is 
no motive for a lyric. It consti- 
tutes the hardship referred to. So, 
while the Chaperone snores rhyth- 
mically (confident that when she 
does choose to awake, the mozo with 
95 



g6 Mexico City 

her chocolate will be at the door; 
while night hangs upon my eyes 
and I am in the very middle of 
an interesting dream), I dress and 
stealthily hurry forth through the 
echoing corridors of the hotel into 
the raw, gray day. For I am going 
to early mass in the old cathedral, 
— afterward to the flower mar- 
ket. 

To be sure, I could go at another 
and a more rational hour, but then 
I would not see the dulce-girls and 
the street-sweeper and the pickpocket 
and the cutthroat — nor any of their 
friends. I shall not know them all, 
I fear, but they are sure to be 
there at early mass; I shall see the 
submerged two-thirds of Mexico at 
their devotions. 



An Idler's Note-Book 97 

It will be different, very different, 
from that ceremony of yesterday in 
the San Domingo Cathedral. (What 
if that aristocratic old fane could 
be induced to tell what it knows 
about the Inquisition for the Re- 
pression of Heresy?) Mrs. Diaz was 
there — all the Spanish-Mexican na- 
bobs were there, — in silk attire and 
ablaze with gems. 

It was very beautiful. The walls 
of the cathedral were hung with 
ruby silk-velvet, from the rich gild- 
ing of the frieze to the wainscot 
line; candles twinkled on a score 
of altars and blazed in constella- 
tions overhead; the rich vestments 
of the priests were heavy with gold 
embroidery; the images were crowned 
and hedged about with regular hot- 



98 Mexico City 

house flowers; and the music was 
an inspiration to high thinking for 
a week. 

But perfect ceremonies like that 
are for the edification of Mexico's 
rich and mighty — and for friends of 
the American Consul-General ; the 
hungry poor do not need such beau- 
tiful theatrics — they are content to 
slip into the church and hurriedly 
say their little prayer alone. 

Such a gray and dreary morning! 
The chill and the damp penetrate 
like stilettos — no one in sight, not 
even a lottery-ticket vender. 

Ah! there goes a barefooted la- 
borer in dirty white cottons; his 
zarape is so badly worn and he 
looks frozen — but he does not shiver. 
He wears his entire wardrobe, and 



w 
o 




An Idler's Note-Book 99 

it would not make him warm to 
shiver or to grumble. (I can philos- 
ophize at this cheerless, matutinal 
hour, but my teeth will chatter 
traitorously.) He hurries along, with 
a haughty air and a handful of cold 
tortillas. He, too, is going to very 
early mass. 

We enter in at the splendidly- 
carved doors of the Sagrario, the 
big seventeenth-century chapel once 
, used only for marriages, christenings 
and funerals, and from which the 
crucifix and holy-water were carried 
to the dying in a wonderful gilded 
chariot; at its approach even a vice- 
roy had to kneel — perhaps in the 
mud. Of course you do not see the 
Procession of the Holy Wafer in 
these days, and this magnificent old 

L« '<> 



lOO Mexico City 

church is now the property of the 
Mexican government. 

The style of the Sagrario may be 
architecturally vicious — it is a trifle 
heavy with ornament. But Time has 
done much in his inimitable way; 
he has subdued the gold of the 
marvelously-wrought carvings within, 
which when new must have quite 
blinded the eye of him who looked. 

I am not too soon — already, in 
the faint light of the early morn- 
ing, the bare floor of the great 
chapel is dark with kneeling wor- 
shipers. 

My laboring-man carefully places 
his tortillas and his hat on the floor 
and kneels afar off. Near him is a 
black-robed woman telling her beads 
in a fashion most picturesquely de- 



An Idler's Note-Book loi 

vout; with her face shadowed that 
way by her rebozo, her head is a 
very good likeness of the Stabat 
Mater. 

Ah! there are some young friends 
of mine — dulce-girls every one. 
They are very pretty in their faded 
pinks and blues, and their charm- 
ing little smiles of recognition al- 
most induce me to believe that the 
sun is up and a-shining outside. 

These figures prostrate before that 
dusty old side -altar seem to have a 
common grief ; the man wears mourn- 
ing. 

A lottery-woman bows her head 
down to the cold pavement. Her 
tickets make a big bulge in her 
blue rebozo. Maybe she prays for 
good luck this day. 



102 Mexico City 

Leaning near one of the big stone 
pillars is a barefooted Indian; his 
white cotton blouse is horrid with 
blood-stains, yet he is no murderer 
— only a butcher-boy. He fidgets 
with his shabby hat; he certainly 
has a woe, but who will comfort 
him? 

A charming young lady in black 
bows low to the principal altar and 
glides out, drawing closely her head- 
covering. She is as sweetly and 
fragilely beautiful as a Bougereau 
virgin. 

I tiptoe past a pottery merchant 
whose wares are forgotten on the 
pavement at his side; past a sleepy 
boy with a tray of magenta tunas; 
and past a sorrowful-faced old woman 
with two baskets of yellow pumpkin 



An Idler's Note-Book 103 

blossoms. People will buy them and 
boil them for '* greens." 

Then I pick my way through 
kneeling groups of stern-faced men, 
wrapped to the chin in their zarapes, 
their unreadable eyes on the priests; 
they might be images in tinted bisque 
so motionless are they against that 
cold white background. Oo-oo-oo! I 
do not like to look at them! They 
do not pray — they just gaze straight 
ahead, in such an intense and in- 
comprehensible way. The poor things 
look really very wicked! 

For a moment I rest at the end 
of an ancient wooden settee and by 
the side of a blind old beggar. His 
poor body is misshapen with age 
and with rheumatism, but his un- 
beautiful face is illumined with love 



I04 Mexico City 

and faith, as he listens to the serv- 
ice. He, alone, in all that throng, 
looks thoroughly happy and hope- 
ful. 

Then, through rows of women tell- 
ing their beads, but with their eyes 
following me curiously, I pass by 
the side-altar (where a young priest 
is reading the service from an old 
book delightfully rubricated) and into 
the cathedral proper. 

At its entrance I stand humbly, 
very humbly, and look down the 
nave — up into the dome. Gloomy 
and magnificent, — vast, sublime! The 
echo of a footfall seems a profana- 
tion. 

I suddenly realize that I am pray- 
ing. 

And there is the famed high-altar 



An Idler's Note-Book 105 

and the marvelous choir-rail with 
its superb candelabra, not yet melted 
down by the Mexican government. 
Despoiled again and again and again, 
yet this old cathedral founded by 
Cortes is still splendid with paint- 
ings and rare marbles; it is still 
beautiful with the gleam of silver 
and gold and fine brass and pol- 
ished onyx. For it was the costli- 
est church ever built on the western 
continent. 

But such magnificence I can ap- 
preciate only in an infantile way at 
such an early hour — I will find the 
Murillo and come again in the after- 
noon. 

What, I wonder, is the disquiet- 
ing sin of that ragged little man 
kneeling so abjectly at the great 



io6 Mexico City 

Altar of Pardon! What a restless 
eye and bad mouth! 

Our Blessed Lady of Guadalupe 
appears to be the best-beloved; the 
candles on her altars seem always 
to be lighted and the railing hung 
with the freshest flowers. Over at 
her hillside shrine in Guadalupe 
where, in the third vision, she ap- 
peared to the Indian, the walls are 
covered with the most curious imagin- 
able little paintings, — representing all 
sorts of catastrophes which were 
happily averted, through her influ- 
ence, from the individuals who grate- 
fully hung up those votive memorials. 

The beggars who ask alms in the 
name of the Virgin of Guadalupe 
may well be a sanguine lot. 

Under one of these side-altars. 



An Idler's Note-Book 107 

they say, are buried the heads of 
many Mexican patriots, and some- 
where in one of these side-chapels 
reposes the Emperor Iturbide. Under 
this lofty roof and with much glit- 
tering pomp, those fated two, Maxi- 
milian and Carlotta, were crowned 
with crowns that brought such brief 
power and so much grief. 

Just outside the door of the sac- 
risty stands a splendidly-carved old 
confessional, quite guiltless of var- 
nish and curiously worm-eaten. My 
admiration is noted by the old 
sacristan. He comes and he bows 
and with a princely wave of the 
hand, he gives me permission to 
inspect the sacristy of the great 
cathedral, which I find behind two 
more seventeenth-centurj' doors, won- 



io8 Mexico City 

derfuUy carved. I shudder as I pass 
in, lest the brown, satiny wood of 
those dear old doors soon be "re- 
stored" by applications of ''fillers" 
and paints and varnish. 

The tiny altar-boys, in cheerful 
scarlet robes, are buzzing about, and 
an old, old priest (such a fine and 
gentle face !) is making himself ready 
for the next mass — and with a de- 
liberation absolutely restful. The 
three chat softly and affectionately. 

My presence is unnoted and I 
wander about, staring at the amazing 
paintings spread over the walls and 
ceiling (and which I hope some day 
to have forgotten), trying vainly not 
to covet the splendid old mahogany 
chests of drawers extending around 
the great room. How ideal in their 




Street Sweeper 



An Idler's Note-Book 109 

simplicity are the brass pulls thereof, 
and, too, how eloquent of their ancient 
origin ! 

I very well know that all those 
drawers are crammed with folded 
vestments and altar-cloths heavy with 
gold and silver thread and beautiful 
with splashes of old posies such as 
never grew in any earthly garden. 
I further realize that I shall never 
own even a patch of all those bro- 
cades — that I shall probably never 
even see one of those altar-cloths. 
But with as resigned as possible a 
countenance, I thank the pleasant 
little sacristan for the pleasure of 
having seen the dreadful paintings 
(why should he suspect the chests 
of drawers are worth looking at?) 
and hurry out into the nave of the 



no Mexico City 

dim old cathedral, echoing now with 
the footfalls of many newly-arrived 
worshipers. They look a more cheer- 
ful lot — doubtless they have all break- 
fasted. But where is that Murillo? 
I cannot detect the old master 
among so many of his talented pupils 
— and then it is so very dark in 
the little alcoves. I search in vain 
up and down both those great aisles. 
Why don't they have it placarded? 
And, oh! if I could only again lo- 
cate the man with all those lovely 
tortillas ! 

But it's now for the Flower Mar- 
ket, in the very shadow of the 
Cathedral on the west and fringed 
about with parrot-venders and straw- 
berry-women. 



An Idler's Note-Book iii 

The flower-boys are just effectively 
spreading their really gigantic wreaths 
of daisies and pansies and arrang- 
ing in bunches great masses of blue 
and yellow and red. And such 
quantities of white flowers, too — 
enough for the bridal of all the 
earth. 

These modern Aztecs show a 
fine appreciation of color and who 
would have expected it, in the 
remnant of a race so long enslaved 
and down-trodden! Many of the 
flowers are packed in the stiff, con- 
ventional French fashion — very pretty 
indeed on a Dresden plate or a wall- 
hanging — and which these imitative 
people probably learned in Carlotta's 
time. But they have their own pretty 
little tricks. Rosebuds, as you wait, 



112 Mexico City 

are made into fnll-blown roses; they 
paint the gardenia, likewise the water- 
Hly, a charming cerise red; and I 
suspect they throw perfume on their 
violets. 

Oh! only a wooden image could 
resist all these impassioned entreat- 
ies, these sweet blandishments of 
tone and glance of the Mexican 
flower-seller. A French milliner would 
be stricken dumb with envy. 

An animate statue of bronze in 
white cottons (not too white) begs 
you so mellifluously, so tragically, 
to buy a gardenia set daintily about 
with myosotis and fringed with vio- 
lets. You glance twice at the little 
fellow, so he becomes a persistent 
shadow; you must buy then, or run 
away. 



An Idler's Note-Book 113 

"What value?" "Ten cents, young 
lady." But you turn to the old 
woman with the cherry-colored lilies 
and, with a comic little grimace, the 
dramatic flower - boy immediately 
thrusts the ten-cent gardenia into 
your hand for three cents. 

Your heart may be beating wildly, 
but you assume indifference and get 
that armful of forget-me-nots for 
eighteen cents. 

If you enthuse openly over those 
flawless American Beauties, the ex- 
orbitant price of eight cents each 
will be yours to pay. 

Oh! if things in Mexico were 
strictly one price only, what a heaven 
it would be for the enthusiast! As 
it is, you learn to deceive and dis- 
semble and dissimulate — you return 



114 Mexico City 

to the States with that New Eng- 
land conscience of yours in a per- 
fectly unrecognisable condition, if 
you bring it back at all. 

What a sweet bewilderment to 
sight and smell is this flower mar- 
ket! And was there ever a more en- 
ravishing perfume than the composite 
of violets and gardenias and Mexican 
strawberries? You are certainly in- 
toxicated, and you buy in the most 
reckless gringo fashion. All the 
flower boys have discovered you 
now, and they rush at you and 
thrust dazzling nosegays into your 
eyes and under your nose and quite 
deafen you with their entreaties to 
buy. 

But you manage to center your 
admiration (the apparent waning of 



An Idler's Note-Book 115 

which influences the market-price) 
upon a cluster of superb orchids. 

"Lady! lady! fifty cents." You 
lift your eyebrows in counterfeit 
amazement. 

"Beautiful aroma, twenty-five cents, 
young lady! twenty-five cents!" You 
shrug your shoulders. 

"Eighteen cents! eighteen cents! 
eighteen cents! little lady!" 

But their picturesqueness, their 
caressing tones and honorific dimin- 
utives — and their bargains — do not 
annihilate the fact that some loose 
change must be saved for to-day's 
pottery and diilces. 

Nevertheless, I consider with seri- 
ousness the purchase of one of their 
giant wreaths of daisies, with a big 
cluster of gardenias and white roses 



ii6 Mexico City 

nodding at the top; it is only two 
dollars, Mex. The trouble is, it is 
quite too gi*and to present to an in- 
di\ddual in the private walks of life, 
even in IMexico; Teddy Roosevelt 
lives at such an inconvenient dis- 
tance; I have no friend in the Amer- 
ican cemetery. 

But then — I love daisies quite as 
much as Eric Mackay ever could, 
and there really might be a won- 
derful pleasure in the possession of 
a garland of flowers about four feet 
in diameter! There might be a — 
but no! I simply cannot afford to 
squander the price of so many lovely 
water-bottles or of that big, persim- 
mon-colored crucifix down in the 
Thieves' Market, on my room deco- 
rations. 



An Idler's Note-Book 117 

Therefore do I sigh, turning away 
mine eyes slowly and remembering 
Lot's wife. 

Then, dragging myself away from 
those gorgeous heaps of flowers 
flaunting in the dark-blue shadow of 
the market — and compelling myself 
past even the soft -voiced strawberry- 
women — I betake myself and my 
floral burdens out into the pale, early 
sunshine and back to the hotel. 

That was the memorable morning 
I ate even the thick slab of indiffer- 
ent sweet-cake that, in Mexico, comes 
to you with your morning chocolate 
under the beguiling name of pan 
IngUs. 



At a Mexican Country-House 



AT A MEXICAN COUNTRY- 
HOUSE 

The day before, under the blazing 
sun of Teotihuacan, I had climbed 
the Pyramid of the Sun and the 
Pyramid of the Moon; that day, 
breakfastless, I had gone to the 
Merced Market and the famously 
beautiful old church of La Santisima; 
I had afterward tramped, quite lunch- 
eonless, all over and around the hill- 
side shrines of Our Blessed Lady at 
Guadalupe, and had accumulated in 
her market-places a mozo-load of 
pottery for friends in the States. 

These simple facts produced not 
merely an under-languaged enthusi- 
asm but a mighty hunger and an 

1 2 1 



122 Mexico City 

inordinate longing for a rest-cure. 
The hunger, I can now see, was 
foreordained. Not, indeed, that I 
might look with rapture and enforced 
resignation upon a Mexican banquet 
but that one gringo might sit down 
and eat thereof and arise triumphant 
with digestion not permanently im- 
paired. 

It was in the late afternoon of 
that busy, that dreadfully happy 
day, that I reached the hotel and 
was told that the special car for the 

S minister's ball left the Zocalo 

within one little hour. I was dis- 
mayed. There was no margin for a 
siesta nor for a pilgrimage to a 
restaurant — there was hardly time 
for a bath and a bromo-seltzer. It 
was a very unlovely moment. 



An Idler's Note-Book 123 

We crammed some of our fixings 
into a party-bag, we made perfectly 
frantic haste and we succeeded in 
just missing- that car Especial. But 
ere we had slain ourselves, before 
we were even well started in lam- 
entations, our generous American 
friend (he remained cosily at home 
and read a musty book by Bernal 
Diaz) donated the trifling sum of 
twenty dollars for our car-fare, and 
we four were soon jolting along 

toward the country-house of the S 

minister, in a private street-car of 
our very own. 

It was raining when we reached 
the village of our destination, an 
ancient and picturesque one, about 
fifteen miles out from the capital 
city. The cobbled and grass-grown 



124 Mexico City 

streets wound artistically between 
high stone walls, over which drooped 
branches of strange trees, dripping 
in the noiseless rain. 

We were not so very, very merry 
as we gToped along. The great dark- 
ness and the silence seemed ominous. 

There were big lanterns (three, to 
be accurate, and swinging from mas- 
sive iron brackets above the entrances 
to secluded villas) that threw pale 
yellow rays down the black and 
glistening streets; but they created 
fantastic shadows and only momen- 
tarily dispelled the fear of lurking 
brigands in long cloaks, with gleam- 
ing daggers. Those two dark, mut- 
tering figures just in advance of us 
— were they prisoners and assassins? 
The setting of the scene was not 



An Idler's Note-Book 125 

reassuring. And the narrow street 
twisted on and on and away into 
the darkness and without any sounds 
of revelry, without any Japanese 
lanterns. We were very dull and 
very, very tired. Could we reason- 
ably expect to discover a party any- 
where along that ancient B. C. -look- 
ing street? 

But at last and before our gowns 
were quite crushed and limp, we 
arrived. This fact, evolved so tedi- 
ously (perhaps years had really 
passed since we left the lights of 
the Zocalo!) was announced through 
the medium of a big iron knocker. 

Journeying by rail and by stage- 
coach and by canoe and by mule 
are unique experiences, but it is the 
arrival that in Mexico is so partic- 



1 26 Mexico City 

ularly charming-. The dogs and the 
servants (they live in the rooms 
next to the big entrance) are all so 
frankly glail to see yon — and the 
host and his family hurry to assure 
you, over and over, not of yom* 
welcome merely but of your owner- 
ship of everything- in sight. Then 
the maids and their children and 
their grandchildren all look after 
yoxtr com fort in such an enthusiastic 
and such a gratifying way. And 
then they all stand around admiringly. 
Your identity may have slirunken 
pitifully on the journey, but the 
Mexican welcome is a compensa- 
tion for all the trials and weari- 
nesses, and you gradually expand 
and radiate sufliciently for a person- 
.ige two times as eminent. 



All hUer's Note-Hook 127 

We were too late for the dinner 
and the amateur theatrics that pre- 
ceded tlie ball, but (and 1 thanked 
my stars!) we were in good time 
for the supper. 

Ah me! Thirty hours, I solilo- 
quized, and Fate had given me but 
two little red bananas, some mere 
dots of pink sweet-cakes (the girl 
mixed the dough in a queer bowl 
and baked them over a tiny char- 
coal fire, while I stood and ad- 
mired) and a mouthful of chalybeate 
water over at the sacred well of 
Our Tvady — plus two bromo-seltzers 
while dressing for the ball. 

This would have been niggardly, 
had it not been positively munificent. 
The nasty chalybeate water made it 
munificent as, taken internally, one 



128 Mexico City 

drop of that liquid is equivalent to 
a sight-draft on the future for an- 
other trip to Mexico. But, perverse- 
ly enough, this consoling fact was 
not revealed to me until a fortnight 
had elapsed. 

So, when the procession formed 
for the supper -rooms on the other 
side of the big patio, and a Mex- 
ican young man in powdered wig 
and eighteenth century regimentals 
(he had been helping dance a min- 
uet) entreated me to honor him 
with my company thither, I could 
have danced or have wept with de- 
light. But I only smiled and tried 
not to look ravenous. 

This country place of the S 

minister's was thoroughly charming, 
even on a black night and in a 



An Idler's Note-Book 129 

dreary rain. Two centuries and more 
ago it was the property of a Span- 
ish marquis, the gentleman who 
planned the pleasure-garden which, 
on that wet and moonless evening of 
the ball, we were not permitted to see. 

Of course the villa rambled in the 
approved Mexic style all around four 
sides of the patio, or paved inner 
court, beautified with rare trees and 
flowers and festoonings of delicate 
vines. And a stroll along the cor- 
ridor on two sides of the big patio 
brought us to the supper-rooms, 
which were lofty, Frenchified apart- 
ments, softly lighted with candles 
and echoing with merry small-talk 
in several languages. 

The long table, with its cande- 
labra, its superb roses, its disquieting 



1 30 Mexico City 

array of tall bottles and unfamiliat 
viands — and, too, with all those un- 
American faces opposite, seemed like 
nothing but a French print. Noth- 
ing seemed distinctly real, as I sank 
into my chair, except my very in- 
dividual hunger. 

At my right was a Mexican gen- 
tleman whose English unaided by 
an interpreter was limited to an 
interrogative "No" and a variety 
of bows; next him was the hostess 
— she spoke everything modern ex- 
cept English, she detested English. 
Plainly, the Fates had decreed that 
I should eat and be silent. 

But on my left there was discov- 
ered a Spanish lady who knew six 
good American adjectives and two 
nouns; and, as I could boast scores 



An Idler's Note-Book 131 

of Spanish adjectives and exclama- 
tives, together with a few nouns 
and a verb or two, we became 
greatly attached to each other dur- 
ing the progress of that feast. Even 
if I did, in my anxiety to be at 
home in Spanish, confusedly garnish 
it with school-girl German and kin- 
dergarten French, it all passed for 
high English. (I have sighed for a 
phonographic record of the conver- 
sation; it would successfully divert 
me, and mine enemies, even on the 
longest, dreariest day. ) 

Chemically speaking, a Mexican 
party-supper is supposed to be equal 
to the sum total of several stupen- 
dous things — the first rarebit of the 
boarding-school miss, plus amateur 
pineapple fritters and hot pie for 



132 Mexico City 

breakfast, plus tripe and wedding- 
cake for supper. It would seriously 
upset the digestion of a cassowary, 
certainly of any gringo that ever 
came to the republic unless pre- 
ceded by something like a thirty- 
hour fast. There were, I distinctly 
remember, twelve sorts of meat, 
eight dulces^ one salad and many, 
many wines — not one of the dulces 
was an old acquaintance. 

But I lost count of the other ex- 
periments. Many of them, though 
spiced and decorated very mysteri- 
ously, I bravely essayed and re- 
gretted not — that evening. And I 
privately congratulated myself on my 
accumulated hunger — ^without it, I 
might have been considered provin- 
cial and supercilious. ^ 



An Idler's Note-Book 133 

My Spanish neighbor was properly 
charmed with an American who could 
eat appreciatively of her favorite 
dishes. (Our taste in jokes may 
have been seriously different.) And 
I kept thinking of the Moor who, 
in my Third Reader, ate a peach 
with a stranger and therefore re- 
mained his true friend, even when 
he learned his only son had been 
killed by him. This was irrelevant, 
but it interested me. 

The menu was quite elaborate 
enough, yet, after a little while, I 
forgot my manners and whispered 
to a maid for a glass of water. 

Alas! the lordly host heard of 
my heresy in some way and promptly 
came to learn whether I were ill or 
his wines not pleasing. My prefer- 



134 Mexico City 

ence for distilled water (and of 
which in that gTeat establishment 
there was less than one quart) was, 
in Mexico, quite incomprehensible. 
So I divined I had disgraced my- 
self and my godmother and had 
annoyed a royal variety of host. 
And I was immediately penitent 
and in the simplest English, bnt 
he did not understand. 

I never knew what my Spanish 
neighbor said in my defence — she 
said so much and ^^'ith so graceful 
a vehemence, patting my hand the 
while. But I am sure that what 
she said was kind. And the legend 
of the Moor and the man and the 
peach again recurred to me. 

At last, through a great American 
diplomat and linguist, an elaborate 



An Idler's Note-Book 135 

explanation that satisfactorily ex- 
plained was effected, and later, when 
making^ our adieus, I was cordially 
included in an invitation to dine 
with the minister and his family on 
the very next Sunday. 

We left the ball early, very early 
in the morning- — but most of the 
others remained to breakfast in the 
garden. It was only on leaving 
that I was made to understand that 
adieus, with handshakes, must not 
be stinted at a Mexican party but 
made to each guest, while all the 
others frankly stare. 

It will be quite impossible to forget 
that long white and gold room with 
the blaze of lights at each end, the cor- 
ners deep and black with chape rones. 

But those nice ladies with the 



136 Mexico C\iy 

bright ovos .uul the sott voices — thoy 
did not ombr.ioc mo after the fash- 
ion of the St. ;>' ■ .utut and swiftly 
kiss me on cheeks and forehead — 
that was my tlrst appearance. I 
\\ as verv sorry. It was snch a 
pretty and dnunatic cetemotty. The 
tloor near the native musicians was 
bright with young men ami nuiid- 
ens, embarrassingly observant and 
who would. I very well knew, con- 
stnie any mistake of mine as a na- 
tional, not an individual, blunder. 
Oh* whv should T say goodbye to 
any of them- Why shouldn't I turn 
and flee? 

The next time, for I have vowed 
the vow, I shall certainly remain to 
breakfast — iive! to luncheon, to din- 
ner' Then shall 1 honorably escape 



An Idler's Note-Book 137 

an excess of farewells in the first 
person. 

Very unfortunately, the Sunday 
dinner invitation had to be re- 
gretted. But later on there came 
an entire day in this country home, 
with the minister's charming but 
non- English speaking wife and his 
merry daughters. 

They were very pretty women and 
daintily bred — they usually wore silken 
Vienna-made frocks — and each im- 
pressed us as an ideal hostess. Yet, 
inconsistently enough, they made no 
mention whatever of any progressive 
game or guessing contest, with cut- 
glass and sterling silver prizes. It 
was quite ridiculous, to be sure! 
How could we consider ourselves 



138 Mexico City 

properly entertained? But Mexican 
society is still shockingly primitive — 
they simply do not know how to 
get bored. 

Immediately on our arrival that 
day (after the dogs had barked and 
after we had passed in grand re- 
view before three generations of 
servants), we had wine and French 
cakes in the salon and a distress- 
ingly long pow-wow in Spanish — and 
oh! so elaborate, so mellifluous, that 
the mere thought of the dialect of 
Posey County and the Bowery was 
a positive refreshment. 

Then there was an hour or more 
of Schumann and Grieg and Chopin 
(but no '* rag-time") interpreted by 
a native daughter of the republic 
just back from her finishing-school in 



An Idler's Note-Book 139 

Germany. And after that we were 
given an opportunity to admire some 
boarding-school drawings and hand- 
paintings and bits of needle-work. 

But most of that delightful day 
was spent in the green twilight of 
the dear old garden, a pleasure- 
garden of exceptional beauty planned 
by a Spanish nobleman of taste and 
wealth two hundred years before. 

It was old and shady and sweet- 
smelling, it was not too trim; it 
was But a description of its ar- 
tistic values would be quite impossible. 

There were about forty acres in 
the high-walled inclosure and, along 
the broad walks and under the 
great, strange trees that arched high 
above, were enchanting tangles of 
dreadfully rare shrubs and flowers. 



I40 Mexico City 

At the far end were the ruined 
baths — the mossy arches draped with 
rose-vines; and then there were 
gfrottoes and fountains with summer- 
houses and a bowling-alley. And^ at 
the intersection of several shady paths, 
there was a shrine of Our Lady 
of Guadalupe. It was a lovely, moss- 
grown ruin and suggestive of a very 
great deal of poetrj^ Yet I found I 
would have preferred a sun-dial. 

It seemed a sin to chatter undef 
those mighty trees and in that great 
and meaningful stillness. And the 
tender green gloom, the great and 
eloquent peace inspired such a lofty 
sort of abstraction, — then finally a 
pleasing melancholy. 

Our hostess, as in due time she 
led the way to the dining-room of 



An Idler's Note-Book 141 

the villa, made a long speech in 
Spanish — supplemented by her daugh- 
ters in a sprightly chorus of French 
and German and English. I was 
personally obliged for the English 
(when you get as far as irregular 
verbs, all the other languages are 
such a bore!) and pained extremely 
to learn that the cook-lady of the 
household, having attended a fiesta 
in the city, was already several 
days behind schedule time. They 
did not wait luncheon for her, which 
was wisdom. 

This was not an isolated case. 
We chanced upon a number of rich 
unfortunates whose maid-servants and 
man-servants frequently mixed po- 
tions with their pulque that made 
them forgetful of common little 



142 Mexico City 

things like Time and Duty. If one 
has vast sympathy for the down- 
trodden and distressed, and is skilled 
in the ethics of consolation, she 
certainly should abide in Mexico and 
give ear to the jeremiads of the 
Mexican housewife with a house 
swarming with servants. She is 
not needed here in the States — - 
where one can if necessary live 
peacefully at study-clubs and recep- 
tions and matinees, feeding at a 
restaurant and taking refuge at 
night in a flat or a private hotel. 
If I were a Mexican lady I would 
pray to the Virgin of Guadalupe 
all the way up the Street of Degra- 
dation to send me an accomplished 
cook, one who eschewed bull-fights 
and fiestas and family funerals. If 



An Idler's Note-Book 143 

she didn't come, I would in my 
despair either plunge from the 
cathedral tower or buy a cook-book. 
The mantilla of the minister's 
chief cook had fallen temporarily 
upon young sub-cooks of habits more 
certain but reputedly less talent; and 
the gentle hostess, who understood 
that Americans generally lunched 
on fried pork and ice-water and 
buckwheat-cakes, did fear that her 
guests would find nothing suited to 
their tastes. But she looked encour- 
aged after the third course. 

So the luncheon we had that day 
was of necessity extremely simple. 
There were really but eight courses 
and we sat at table hardly an hour 
and a half. 



144 Mexico City 

Down Iherc^ not even the peons 
have to bother about the circling 
flight of time and the simple lunch- 
eons or breakfasts (they are a com- 
posite of French, vSpanish, Italian 
and native cooking) sometimes make 
a Yankee apprehensively yearn for 
plain bread and cheese and apple- 
sauce. Or a digestive apparatus run 
by electricity. 

In spite of the dreaming in that 
poetic garden on the other side of 
the patio it must be recorded the 
gringo portion of that luncheon dis- 
appeared in a manner quite dis- 
heartening to a lazy cook. But then 
we were always disgracefully hungry 
in Mexico — hungry as peons, and 
our appetites could not be twisted 
into compliments to any cook-lady. 



I 

An [flier's Note-Hook 145 

Here, for the curious, is set down 
a t^ue aiifl faithful copy of the 
menu from luy notes, whicli were 
scribbled that eveninj^ when we had 
returned to the hotel, in a deluge 
of rain — our umbrella a parasol of 
white silk and chiffon! 

Rice Soup, 

Spiced Rice. 
Sardines. Eggs ftcrambled with tomatoes. 

MuiUm Cbo7>«i. 

Summcr-squaHh chopped and fried with chilis 

and tomatocH. 

Roant Pork. 

Boiled Potatoes. Frencii Bread. 

Fried Bru.^.sels Sprouts, green Chili Hauce. 

PrijoleB. 

Dulces. French Cakeu. 

Three Winen. Beer. 

Two ly>ttle': of Distilled Water. 



146 Mexico City 

Extremely simple, yet I encour- 
agingly sent my profound regards to 
the little sub-cooks when the frijoles 
were taken aw^ay; but, with an abso- 
lutely fine consideration, I withheld 
the private opinion that promotions 
in the kitchen were in order and 
the return of the chief cook a mat- 
ter of merited indifference. For I 
discerned that the fastidious young 
ladies of the household could not 
be induced to eat of the pottage 
prepared by the humble amateurs — 
and they had never heard of cook- 
ing-schools and chafing-dish clubs. 

Then, sauntering about in the 
patio, we discovered an ancient stone 
staircase, which we climbed half 
timidly only to find ourselves on a 
charming azotea, shaded by the tops 



An Idler's Note-Book 147 

of the patio-trees. Then we strolled 
out into the dreamy old garden 
again, to a summer-house near the 
big fountain, and there we had fruit 
and coffee and listened to the legends 
of hidden treasure and ghosts. 

I much preferred the ghosts, with 
the old bowling-alley and ruined 
summer-house for a background. If 
that vine-clad old place was not 
really haunted, it was merely be- 
cause Mexican ghosts lacked the 
proper artistic perception. 

The cool, violet-scented air tossed 
gently the greenery which rioted 
along the mossy, yellow wall of the 
garden and the shadows slowly grew 
longer and longer. The old villa 
gleamed and shimmered like a pearl 
through the trees. Every one was 



148 Mexico City 

in a placid, gracious mood and in 
harmony with the spirit of the gar- 
den. 

Was it really a dream, an en- 
chantment? Would I wake up else- 
where and be compelled to look 
always upon terra-cotta houses, each 
boasting thirteen styles of architec- 
ture and flanked by nasturtiums and 
magenta petunias? 

Then was I saddened. 

But after a little while, as I was 
stirring my coffee and grudgingly 
paying conversational tribute, I dis- 
covered there was an illusion to en- 
joy. I kept very still, and, in the 
green gloom of the distant paths, I 
began to espy wraiths of certain 
beautiful ladies and brave lords; — 
they once meandered over the pages 



An Idler's Note-Book 149 

of old Spanish romances and Italian 
ballads — they once lived and tragic- 
ally died, most of them, in old-time 

dramas. 

I gazed dreamily and not too direct, 

so they strolled quite near after a 
time, — plucking roses and jasmine 
sprays; they stood at the fountain's 
edge, with clasped hands and 
glance exceeding tender. 

The farewells, I observed, took 
place at the little old blue and yel- 
low shrine. (One of the tiles now 
does acceptable service on my writ- 
ing-desk as a paper-weight. Explan- 
atively, the youngest daughter of 
the household did pluck it out for 
me and did wash it in the waters 
of the fountain — and I accepted it 
greedily.) 



150 Mexico City 

Their happy laughter and their 
extravagant protestations and their 
reluctant farewells I distinctly saw 
but heard not ; for, alas 1 in the 
sun, those fine ladies in soft bro- 
cades and agleam with jewels cast 
no shade. Neither did their cava- 
liers, so handsome in doublet and 
hose, with velvet Romeo cloaks and 
plumed caps and dangling rapiers. 

Ah, yes! while I had to make a 
long pretence of sipping black, 
syrupy coffee and while the others 
were eating blue figs and merrily 
punning in four languages, I dis- 
tinctly beheld — trooping up and down 
those mossy garden-paths right be 
fore us — such dainty ladies and such 
decorative lords of the picturesque 
long ago ! 



An Idler's Note-Book 151 

But no more shall I see them. 
That venerable garden, with its 
tropic vines and shrubs, with its 
Sleeping-Beauty tangle of rose-trees 
and strange lilies, is modernized 
now; it has been "cleaned up." 
Alas! and alas! it is lighted by 
electricity. 

There is a sadness, a not-to-be- 
assuaged sorrow about such a change. 

But of my day in that old Mex- 
ican garden I am resolved to cher- 
ish only an unmarred recollection, 
and, so long as I shall wander by 
''Time's runaway river," it is to be 
one of my great and unchanging 
joys — a beautiful memory ineffaceable. 



A Street Ramble 



A STREET RAMBLE 

Why is it that one never so 
forcefully realizes as on the day 
after a big party that this life is 
not a dazzling little cluster of ec- 
stacies'" 

That morning after the S min- 
ister's really charming ball out at his 
country-house, the atmosphere seemed 
surcharged with unamiability and 
general infelicities; for each of us 
had fallen out of love v/ith Life, 
dear Life. 

I myself was infinitely melancholy 
and suspicioned that I was doomed 
to death by hanging in the imme- 

155 



156 Mexico City 

diate future; moreover, I was confi- 
dent that no one on all the earth 
or the seas cared. 

It was of course the direct result 
of the menu of the Mexican party- 
supper, an institution that would 
induce acutest melancholy in an 
ostrich. One a week produces a pes- 
simist; two, a misanthrope; and 
three — no gringo ever survives 
three. But at that hour our melan- 
choly eluded analysis. 

Immediately after bread-and-choco- 
late that morning, it was noon by 
the tenor bell on the old Church 
of the Profesa, and, to dispel the 
mental miasma that was ours, we 
all amicably agreed and heroically 
upon a long tramp about the streets 
of the city. 



An Idler's Note-Book 157 

It was on the way down to the 
Alameda that we stopped to enthuse, 
experimentally, over the old Porce- 
lain Palace and to hear the legend 
of the builder. 

He was a young man, a too gay 
young man, of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, and he squandered all his sub- 
stance in riotous living. Then, so 
they tell the tale, he went to his 
father for funds, but that gentleman 
turned him away with a disagree- 
able Spanish proverb about shocking 
spendthrifts and their inability to 
ever build "porcelain palaces." 

And the proud young man re- 
pented of his empty money-bags and 
his evil ways — he reformed and 
speedily amassed a great fortune. 
The legend is minus the method, 



1 sS "Mexico City 

but pirates and brigands wore the 
quick-rich of that period. Then, to 
prove that his father was a false 
prophet, the yoiuii;" man built this 
quaint palace of blue and white 
tiles. It is one of the sights of 
modern Mexico. 

We next halted at the Hotel Jar- 
din, which was once a convent of 
the rich and terribly powerful order 
of San Francisco. Their splendid 
buildings once covered fifteen acres 
of the city's heart, but Comonfort 
cut a street through them. (No good 
Catholic will walk on that street 
yet, so they say.) 

My purpose was a little pilgrimage 
to the balcony-rail on the other side 
of which part of that prose-idyl, 



An Idler's Note-Book 159 

"A White Umbrella in Mexico," 
wa» written. I picked my way be- 
tween the puddles and the mo«sy 
flower-pots of the old patio ^^arden, 
beautiful and miasmatic, I located 
the balcony-rail and ^ot a snap-shot 
just as the sun dod^^ed under a 
cloud. Too late, I unearthed the 
fact that I had a friend whose 
friend's friend knew the present 
occupant of the F. Hopkinson Smith 
suite and Mr. Moon of Zacat<;cas! 

As v/e processioned alon;;^ a nar- 
row, cobbled street, where the smell 
of old pulque made one homesick 
for Chinatown, we stopped to gaze in 
at the den of a charcoal -seller. With 
its velvet, midnight shadows, there 
was no opening but the one door, 



i6o Mexico City 

—with the really delig-htful pottery 
on the blackened walls its only 
high-light, the den would certainly 
have turned the brain of a Rem- 
brandt. Near the doorway, bepow- 
dered and begrimed with the 
glittering, black dust, and sur- 
rounded by sacks and baskets of 
the charcoal — squatted the almost 
naked wife and children. They 
would have been a revelation in 
make-up to a burnt-cork artiste — yet 
only a degenerate would regard 
with anything but deep, deep com- 
passion such wretched human beings. 
There are varieties of picturesque- 
nesses, — this sort made us ill and 
unhappy. 

Then we determinedly tramped 



An Idler's Note-Book i6i 

around and around in the beautiful 
greenwood called the Alameda, past 
the place where not so very long 
ago they burned all the heretics. 

And then along the Paseo as far 
as the glorieta of the statue of 
Guatemozin, the last emperor of the 
Aztecs. Regardless of nationality, 
one's heart beats high with pride 
at the memory of the spirit, the 
courage of this ancient hero. The 
statue, reared by the descendants 
of his enemies, is a noble one, and 
the bas-relief panel representing the 
torture by fire of the royal captive 
justly entitled to one-third of an 
afternoon. 

It is not surprising that the Con- 
queror did not rest well at night; 
Gautemozin's farewell, for one thing, 



1 62 Mexico Cit}^ 

must have etched itself in his brain. 
And such little etchings murder sleep. 

Retracing our steps, we were fre- 
quently besieged by young beggar- 
ladies, the descendants perhaps of 
some of the old caciques. Who 
knows? And who possessed of a 
copper would resist the entreaty of 
the soft, mournful eyes, the low 
music of the appeal? 

' ' Little lady, for the love of Sacred 
Mary, give me a cent, a little cent!** 
"Give me a cent, for the love of 
God, 3^oung lady! Young lady!" 

Alas! the velvet of the little voice 
wears away with maturity. 

That was the afternoon I discov- 
ered the most charming house in 
Mexico City. It was hardly big 



An Idler's Note-Book 163 

enough for a palace, but its dignity 
and its unique beauty, tinged with 
an unmistakable little air of romance 
and the sadness of decay, imme- 
diately won my heart. 

Dainty vines had climbed from 
the inner court, over the roof, to 
fall in cascades of greenery over 
the front — which was pink and faded 
to a tone most delightsome. 

There were, alas! no senoritas in 
any of the balconies nor at any of 
the grated French windows, but there 
was an impressive port^ro on guard 
at the front doorway — through which 
a couple of furniture vans could 
swagger without accident. 

The mJghty doors were heavily 
panelled and studded with iron and, 
in the years gone by, may well 



164 Mexico City 

have added to the owner's mental 
peace, when robbers and assassins 
knocked and whenever there hap- 
pened to be a political revolution. 

Through the passageway there 
was a glimpse of the patio-garden, 
with its jungle of bananas and 
palms, its fountain and two haughty 
peacocks mincing along the tiled 
walk. 

Over the street entrance swung 
an immense lantern, from a charm- 
ingly wrought iron bracket ; of course 
it had not been lighted in perhaps 
twenty years — it was dimmed and 
corroded delightfully. 

And then, on one side of the 
big, mediyeval-looking doors, was the 
best old knocker it has ever been 
my wretched lot to covet. It was 




•,:..>■ -^ 



-'S" 



At a. Mexican Country-Chouse 



An Idler's Note-Book 165 

never the least trouble to walk five 
blocks out of the way, even in mud 
and in rain, to see that knocker. 

We tramped gloomily along the 
pavements of the Main Causeway, 
passed the very spot of Alvarado's 
Leap and the Church of the Martyrs, 
with its time-scarred tablet, — a me- 
morial to those who fell to a ter- 
rible death on that sad night so 
long ago. \ 

We muse pessimistically on the 
fate of all nations and many indi- 
viduals; for we could perceive that 
the whole world was very wretched 
and that there was jo}'- in nothing. 

We waved our hand at a yellow 
street-car driver, tooting a mournful 



1 66 Mexico City 

tin horn, and with him we journeyed 
out to Popotla. 

There we viewed the poor old 
rag of a cypress-tree under which, 
one rainy night, three hundred and 
eighty years ago, Mr. Hernando 
Cortes spent a very bad half hour. 

By the time we reached the his- 
toric spot, a fine and rtielancholy 
rain had very appropriately set in. 
We could the more fully sympathize 
with the great general. 

But it took us only a scant ten 
minutes. 

After a time, the rain had ceased 
in order to display a gorgeously 
crimsoned west, we found ourselves 
in the gloomy little national ceme- 
tery near the Alameda. 



An Idler's Note-Book 167 

The care-taker, v/ho had fought 
with the great Juarez, accompanied 
us about and proudly discoursed on 
certain of the illustrious dead. Most 
of them departed this life by special 
request. 

This was my first Mexican ceme- 
tery. It was very different from 
the little burying-ground on the hill- 
side in my native village, but it was 
no less suggestive of the Great Peace 
of Death, the Complete Consolation. 
The high wall about the inclosure 
was scarred and discolored by Time, 
and it made a shadow quite as 
mournful as the regulation cypress 
or willow. 

In this wall were many cells, 
each one occupied for a term of 
years by a dead tenant; if, at the 



1 68 Mexico City 

end of that time, it was cheerily 
explained to us, the rent of the 
narrow house is not forthcoming in 
advance, the tenant is ejected and 
annihilated by the sexton. The 
merry old fellow showed us the 
fragments of some poor Yorick who 
had that day been found in arrears; 
on the morrow, he was to be un- 
ceremoniously mixed forever with 
the elements. 

The grandees are permanently 
buried. 

The old sexton (I had seen him 
before — when he was digging the 
grave of Ophelia) paused and orated 
at the tombs of Saragossa, Comon- 
fort, Guerrero and Maximilian's Me- 
jia. But he did not break their 
sleep; none of them, not one, rose 



An Idler's Note-Book 169 

up to bow thanks or to contradict. 
The sexton lived a unique dream- 
life and, considering the environ- 
ment, he was strangely cheerful; 
there seemed no heaviness whatever 
under his mirth. He exulted in the 
companionship of the mighty dead, 
he lived over again each day his 
martial youth and was merry. 

Recalling that day when Maxi- 
milian and his followers were dis- 
posed of, he hopped ecstatically about 
and impersonated each in turn so 
cleverly that the scene was really 
there before us. 

The unfortunate Maximilian at his 
hands received the credit of entire 
calmness — he silently laid his hand 
upon his heart; and Miramon, who 
stood in the center of the group. 



170 Mexico City 

nonchalantly curled his mustache. 
But poor Mejia, valiant enough, so 
the old man assured us, — when fac- 
ing an earthly danger, shook just 
like a man with the palsy. 

The sexton's enjoyment of the re- 
hearsal of this historic tragedy and his 
greatest memory was beautiful to see. 

At one side and half-hidden by 
the trumpery tin and bead garlands 
of his adoring countrymen, was the 
mausoleum of the one-time fierce 
Juarez. He sleeps very quietly now, 
in the dim light of the old ceme- 
tery, the damp air heavy with the 
scent of roses and violets. Above 
the tomb is the famous marble fig- 
ure of this modern Aztec hero, with 
his weary head resting in the lap 
of Mexico. 



An Idler's Note-Book 171 

We enthused over its great beauty- 
very satisfactorily indeed for Ameri- 
cans, and so he who had proudly 
marched under the banner of the 
great Juarez bent his poor old back 
and, with infinite care, selected for 
us certain of the cut flowers at the 
foot of the tomb. And of this mark 
of high favor, such a particularly 
fine appreciation was shown that we 
were all urged to come again and 
at any time. Furthermore, we might 
bring our detested cameras inside 
the gates! 

But none of our friends ever 
credited that report. 

A few more short days and then 
will come the low-voiced messenger 
with the order for that merry little 
sexton to take possession of his own 



172 Mexico City 

narrow house in that quiet village. 
Only a little folding of his hands 
to sleep, a little slumber, — then in 
the Unknown Country he will be 
the equal of Mexico's greatest and 
mightiest and the comrade- of even 
his revered Juarez. 

May his last hour here hold only 
calmness. 

When the gates had clanged be- 
hind us and we were once again 
under the broad sky and in the 
midst of the busy streets, then sud- 
denly did all the sad and wretched 
earth seem sweet and dear,— with a 
great rush our desire for life re- 
turned to us — we forgot the disgusts, 
we remembered only our admira- 
tions. In the soft dusk, with the 



An Idler's Note-Book 173 

the yellow street-lights appearing and 
with the many sounds of a city-life 
to encourage us, we no longer were 
wearied pessimists — we once again 
were brave and cheerful. 

What to us then were Death and 
his great mysteries? And an ^ old 
cemetery of dead enmities and dead 
loves and dead ambitions? It was 
glorious to breathe in so good and 
beautiful a world, and to look up 
at the stars and to continue indefi- 
nitely the pursuit of favorite phan- 
toms. 



Personal and Reminiscent 



PERSONAL AND REMINISCENT 

It is disconcerting to a self-respect- 
ing and properly ambitious Ameri- 
can to journey to a far country 
and, after a sojourn of whole 
weeks, to discover his inability to 
perfectly understand a people, — their 
civilization, their aims, their inevit- 
able destiny. 

Treatises on America and its 
numerous tribes are compiled in a 
few hours by mere French and 
English persons speeding across the 
country and as they nonchalantly 
glance from the car-windows. They 
elude the comic weeklies, they get 
177 



178 Mexico City 

put into thick books and become 
standard, eventually forcing Ameri- 
cans into one ot the great interna- 
tional societies tor ^[utual Deprecia- 
tion. 

But such brilliance failed to in- 
spire me; it goaded me into a miser- 
able, an envious gloom. — for IMexico 
was reticent with me. All her motives 
and intents, every heartache and 
each detail of her destiny she re- 
fused to uncover beneath the little 
electric glare of my intellect, I 
scorned to insist and pride pre- 
vented an expostulation. Rut T 
grieved much. 

And then 1 forgot all about it, 
the dear old City of Mexico proved 
so enchanting; there was on every 
side such an infinity of things bliss- 



An Idler's Note-Book 179 

ful and dear to charm me. Why 
try to understand any of them? 

It was good to forget for a time 
the subtleties and complexities of 
an up-to-date civilization; and, ex 
cept the street-cars and the tele- 
graph-pole processions, there was 
nothing in all those strange, bright 
streets to remind me of a sober, 
work-a-day world. 

Mexico is a great enchantress. 
She speedily transformed me from 
a dreary-thoughted slave into a fear- 
less and ambitionless idler; and she 
left me never a depressing memory 
of my former state. 

I forgot, in the tranquillity of that 
metamorphosis, all dissonances and 
disquietness ; I gained the courage 
for present happiness; I dreamed 



i8o Mexico City 

and idled away the days precisely 
as though life knew no bitternesses 
and glooms. Nor distressingly great 
activities. 

Then, when I wandered joyously 
about the market-places, gradually 
possessing myself of such rich earthly 
treasure as rainbow pottery, scraps 
of altar brocades (a trifle faded and 
worn, perhaps), old rosaries and 
worm-eaten books (bound in parch- 
ment by some Friar Jerome and yel- 
lowed exquisitely by ^ Time), — even 
until the little mozo could carry no 
more — until I myself had left neither 
one copper cent nor a finger on 
which to hang another rosary or 
pulque- jug;— 

When I tiptoed into some gray 
old church for a somber reverie and 



An Idler's Note-Book i8i 

where the orange-colored candle-flame 
revealed black-robed Fiamettas and 
Catherines and Carmens confessing 
their sins of the week to stern- 
visaged priests, who sat motionless 
as statues within the open confes- 
sionals ; — 

When I gleefully exchanged cop- 
per coin of the realm for sticky, 
very pink dulces and shared them 
with my devoted little friends of 
the fleeting hour; — 

When I sat myself down on some 
mossy stone bench and made myself 
believe I was one of the barefooted 
masses, ragged, unwashed — my one 
possible supper an uncertain share 
in the family dish of frijoles; — ^ 

When I in a "blue" carriage (with 
a fat, swarthy man on the box, in 



1 82 Mexico City 

a dazzling zarape and a tremendous 
hat of black beaver and silver pas- 
sementerie) arrived at the gates, 
where, in the early starlight, were 
crowded the sad-faced poor to catch 
a glimpse of some great fete — and 
as I (this was such a pleasing, royal 
fancy) directed my slaves to throw 
handfuls of gold among the hungry- 
eyed populace; — 

Who was unkind and rose up 
with scornful finger to disturb my 
dreamings and to remind me that 
in reality I was a joyless, Ameri- 
can drudge, an unconsidered unit of 
a utilitarian, an avaricious mass? 
A representative of a purely me- 
chanical civilization and of a nation 
of bosses and trusts and automatic 
art? 




=^ On the Viga Canal 



An Idler's Note-Book 183 

Of course I was sub-conscious all 
the time of my nationality and the 
dreadful other things; yet, in my 
little vacation-world of romancing 
and make-believe, I was quite too 
generous to accent any such per- 
sonal superiority or good-fortune. 

So, while I wandered and listened 
and wondered, I really made no 
pretence of understanding Mexico 
nor her mode of enchantment; and 
while I promptly admitted her 
charms, I refused to dissect them. 
Those sadly analytic people who 
explain so much and who can tell 
why a little child likes bright red 
and why one is joyous on a day in 
springtime, are a positive menace 
to sanity in an age too replete with 
disillusions. 



184 Mexico City 

It is possible to wholly forget that 
life is duty, in that enchanting 
dream-coiintry commonly spoken of 
as Mexico; and, with periodic bmi- 
dles of books and papers from the 
States, to forever luxuriate in ideally 
tumbled - down, Italianesque villas; 
where, in the middle distances, bright 
beings effectively group themselves 
and where good natured little maids 
come at the clap of the hand, and 
unclose your eyes, when you feel 
equal to the fatigue of gazing out 
at the noon sunlight. This, in the 
golden land of the Montezumas, is 
an idyl and not in the least shiftless 
and disgraceful. 

Ah, yes! I might have been con- 
tent to have dreamed away one 
life-time down in Mexico somewhere. 



An Idler's Note-Book 185 

but it was not practicable and alas! 
dreaming does not seem to be my 
destiny. 

But then, as the discomfited fox 
suspected that certain grapes were 
sour, so am I inclined to suspect 
that my permanent Mexican content 
would have proved a misleading 
variety. Principally because. 

And then what American - bred 
young woman would unprotestingly 
live in a country where there are 
neither matinee clubs, nor women's 
parliaments, nor bicycle teas, nor 
pre-Raphaelite art societies, nor golf 
tournaments, nor lovely Maeterlinck 
circles? 

The Woman of Mexico is serenely 
happy. She doesn't work — all her 



iS6 Mexico City 

male kinfolks assure her it isn't 
lady-like. She is calm, she is sweet 
and she is distractingly picturesque 
— when she wears her very own 
clothes and headgear. And she has 
the good taste to avoid morbid 
self-scnitiny and idle self-culture. 

We of the States may gaze at our 
Mexican neighbor and covet all too 
vainly the serene, lily-of-the-field 
leisure apparently hers forever; but, 
if we are not quite too siiperior, 
we can be terribly avenged. \Ye 
can keep the shirt-waist and sailor- 
hat in vog"ne — they are absoliitely 
fatal to the feminine loveliness of 
Mexico^ so much vaunted. One 
searches wearily for the typical Mex- 
ican beauty in the fashionable crowds 
dri\Hng on the Paseo or shopping on 



An Idler's Note-Book 187 

San Francisco Street. But some 
late afternoon you discover her as 
she comes from confession, in a soft, 
black gown and with the black re- 
bozo draped coquettishly and dis- 
creetly. She flits by, self-conscious 
as a school miss — you catch a flash 
of fine, dark eyes, and, dropping 
your manners, you turn to stare 
adoringly after her. 

Oh, dear! she too looks around — 
to see the details of your gown in 
the back ! 

The Mexican man is admirable. 
Hardly as nice as Kinelm Chillingly 
or any of those other grandiloquent 
old prigs of course, yet still adorable. 

In this era even the unreasonable 
spinsters admit that there should be 



1 88 Mexico City 

plenty of nice men in every well- 
regulated community and landscape. 
They are so decorative or so useful. 

The Men of Mexico are really 
quite as ^jrrible as an army with 
banner-, when you happen to be in 
one of your sixteenth-century moods 
— you forget all about Walter Raleigh 
and Charles Grandison. For they are 
such picturesque composites of heroic 
old Aztec caciques (they, I under- 
stand, were very admirable) and of 
daring Spanish explorers and lord- 
lings and of gay and graceful French 
counts and lots of such people as 
you once met everywhere between 
book-covers. 

But then, moods vary and there 
are times— no matter what the land- 
scape — when one really appreciates 



An Idler's Note-Book 189 

conversation with a man whose 
idea of Woman is never for one 
little minute according to Schopen- 
hauer. Then sometimes, and a great 
deal depends upon the background, 
it is exquisite to listen to unhurried 
and very involved compliments, such 
as men with a touch of latinity 
know best how to compose — and to 
speculate all the time how very hor- 
rified the framers thereof would be, 
could they only read your Philistine 
thoughts as you dutifully smile and 
smile like a pleased saw-dust doll. 
Mexican men are agile and hand- 
some — usually in a small and unim- 
pressive way — and they have a great 
deal of beautiful manner, and they 
are always extremely decorative. But 
I do wish their ball-clothes still in- 



190 Mexico City 

eluded slashed jackets with silver 
buttons and large, tinkling spurs 
and daggers with magic hieroglyphs 
on the blade. 

To them American women are 
but riddles and American men un- 
painted savages. 

It is not, I am quite sure, the 
dearth of elevators and pie and 
soda-fountains and hot breads and 
ice-water and telephones that makes 
all American - bred young women 
doubtful as to their permanent con- 
tentment in a glorious country like 
Mexico. 

Is it the absence of civilized, 
educated men who know how to 
talk and to not talk to the fairly 
intelligent and self-respecting human 
beings that happen to be feminine? 



An Idler's Note-Book 191 

In the way of a little personal 
confession and an unwilling one, I 
myself had been so absorbed in my 
dreamings and my bargainings in 
the Thieves' Market that I had quite 
forgotten to compare the Mexic and 
American type of Man. 

But one day, in the thick of a 
gorgeous Mexican crowd, this dis- 
graceful mental lapse promptly 
ended. For it tl^ere happened that 
I beheld two tall men (I just knew 
they were Americans) collide with 
great force and each other. Mirac- 
ulously, it was not a total wreck. 
I paused in amazement. Then great 
and very distinctly spontaneous was 
"ly Joy> when I heard those two 
men exclaim in perfectly lovely 
nineteenth-century English : 



192 Mexico City 

''Great Caesar's Ghost! What are 
yoti doing down in this neck of 
woods?" 

"Well, God bless my old soul! 
I'm glad to see you! Shake!" 

Now this was not spectacular, and 
it was not exquisitely picturesque 
like the other Mexican street-greet- 
ings, yet it directly appealed to me 
and made me think about things. 

It is in Mexico inelegant for even 
a servant to hurry, and so, as I 
sauntered by with extreme nonchal- 
ance and an unshed tear of sym- 
pathy, I easily discerned that those 
big aliens were mighty homesick. 
But they knew it not, and, in their 
blindness, what could they do but 
just blame the infernal country? 
And then as I walked on and 



An Idler's Note-Book 193 

grieved over their sinful inapprecia- 
tion of the goodly land (they said 
it was musty and God-forsaken), 
I was made to recall anew the 
brusqueness and the deep good- 
nature and the beautiful sincerity 
of the masculine type of the dear 
and far country of which I had 
dreamed at night. 

It was near the Alameda that I 
detected in the rainbow crowd a man 
hustling his little daughter along in 
the real American style, dragging 
her through so much that amazed 
her, so much that made her wide- 
eyed. It was perfectly apparent that 
he was an American, a man of 
purpose and not too much poetr}^, 
and even before he half turned and, 
in the thick of that Mexican babel, 



\<>4 Mexico City 

sliouuv* autv> hor thus. 'Wnue on, 
kivl— c\>me on! come on! He!Y' i:\ve 
that old tramp t\vo4>its. Now, voiuo 
Along!" 

I atn sutx^ I cannot tell why this 
conspicnons haste and this additional 
bit of nineteenth-ctsntnry En^Usli 
v;nite enchanted me; bnt I discov- 
ercvl that T y«{uni«Hl to $hiike that 
big man by the paw% — that 1 wanted 
to hunt np tm ice-cream soda for 
the little dat^ihter, 

Fnt. a^ait\ bowing to wretched 

. N . /;ionaU&m ovo!'. in a strange 

1 sadly me. .\\ past my 

tellow-citi.-on. who. cd. ai^ain 

bvokc Sv time, a: the com- 

.; .v- V- the Somali girl» to buy out 
.\ ral'bead woman 

Tliat was from our own 



nna>;njficcnt Wcjit -of t}i;i,i I wan 
Hvirc. TfJH wore the Wncn al^out the 
eyes ari'l rnouth that come to Iniu 
and v/ho knowft life in the open 
country, un fenced, iintrarnmeled, — 
and who, far from the chattcrin;^ 
crowdB, turnn "hli face to the nun 
•ct and thinkft quietly. Oh! what a 
lot of thin^H we could have talked 
about (in Kn;;liHh!) down there in 
Mexico, even in juHt fifteen min 

lit.':'.' 

He could have told riif. the war- 
newH and of the lant flop of the 
foreign j^owerH and of nftwc ntart- 
linj^ invention and of Kplit-up» in 
('on;;rcn«, and of nome brand-new 
book in the millionth edition! ffe 
mi;;/ht have lacked jfrar;eful hand 
flouriftheri and pretty bow. and light 



196 Mexico City 

ning-change facial expressions, but 
(I'll wager every ancient idol I got 
out at the Pyramid of the Sun one 
perfect day) he would have talked 
to me as to a rational member of 
the species. 

And so I have indulged the hope 
that those three Yankees of that 
afternoon walk did not tarry long in 
our sister republic. For nice Amer- 
ican men sometimes deteriorate in 
Mexico, and, in process of time, 
come to look upon their sister's place 
in American society as quite too 
exalted. Some of them announce 
their entire willingness to shut her 
up in dizzy towers and convents, or 
to hire an old woman to watch her 
when she goes to prayer-meeting or 
to buy darning-cotton. Some men 



An Idler's Note-Book 197 

forget that a nation cannot rise 
higher than its mothers. 

But Mexico. Wherever I wan- 
dered, Mexico proved herself so 
direct in sympathy and so resource- 
ful. For every gray moment, she 
gave me a whole hour of rose- 
color. 

If I failed to see the Southern 
Cross, I at least was so happy as 
to behold trees decorated with great 
bunches of intensely scarlet orchids. 
If the volcanoes did persistently 
swathe their heads in chiffon veils 
of gray cloud; if the yellow fever 
did detain us this side of the tierra 
caliente^ I could count unexpected 
favors in the way of Murillos and 
Van Dyckes and Guido Renis and 



igS Mexico City 

Teniers the Elder — and adventure- 
some jaunts to little story-book towns 
with names so Aztec and histories 
so thrilling as to petrify with many 
an amazement. 

If I walked three miles with two 
cameras and then found the sun on 
the wrong* side of the street, I was 
sure on my way back to chance 
upon some old-time palace or church 
or fountain that was simply unfor- 
getable. 

If my friends in the States forgot 
my existence and wrote me no let- 
ters I had only to go out into the 
highways and compensate myself 
discovering their Mexican doubles. 
I found many of them, for there 
are but a few distinct types and I 
suppose they are universal, nation- 



I 



An Idler's Note-Book 199 

ality and environment being so 
largely an accident. 

If it rained pitchforks, when I 
had planned to stroll and to listen 
to the boom and the shiver of the 
mighty Santa Maria Guadalupe, or 
to hear the band play to the masses 
in the moonlit Zocalo — with the great 
Cathedral and the National Palace 
looking like piles of purest marble 
in the white radiance, — I merely 
rubbed my ring and awaited de- 
velopments. 

Results varied, but the genie un- 
failingly appeared. 

And then, one soulless day, I was 
made to realize that in order to 
prevent serious planetary disturb- 
ances and a shut-down of the whole 



200 Mexico City 

economic machinery of America, I 
must be in a certain corner of the 
United States within just five days. 
It was unspeakably dreadful, but I 
roused me from the lethargy that 
was a delight and was glad that the 
utmost haste was required of me. 

There never would have been 
time in this life for goodbyes to 
my Mexico. 

It all seemed so dear and so 
familiar to me. 

How could I ever leave all those 
fascinating market scenes and the 
lovely old churches with flying but- 
tresses and weeds blossoming high 
on the roofs? 

Then there was that princely 
garden with the peacocks, where I 
had so often loitered, waiting for a 



An Idler's Note-Book 201 

Rosetti or a Burne-Jones damsel who 
never appeared. 

Could my fine, aesthetic nature 
ever again endure to be awakened 
early in the morning by aught save 
the pleasant music of the bells on 
the old church of the Profesa? I 
realized there would be infinite and 
unlovely tests. 

And then, always and ever, it 
would be oh! for a breath of gar- 
denias fresh from the hot lands ! 
And violets from near the Hill of 
the Star! 

There was my view from the old 
cathedral-tower, with the snail-shell 
stairway and the giant bells — and, far 
below — the thick, bright crowds, with 
the music, the color, the sunlight. 

Far to the north, out near the 



202 Mexico City 

maguey-plantations, bloomed Nature's 
own gardens for the little peon 
women and children — acres of wild 
pink cosmos and long stretches, big 
patches, strips and dots of scarlet, 
of blue and of orange. I could 
never forget those brown, gentle 
people and those miles and miles 
of flowers. 

Yes, Mexico, my Mexico, had 
been very rich in loveliness. 

Travelers have long told us the 
tale that Mexico, the land of amaz- 
ing contrasts, is the most pictur- 
esque country under the sun — and 
now I have some little reason to 
believe that this is truth. 

In the still of many summer noons 
to come, I know I shall dream much. 



An Idler's Note-Book 203 

grieving and rejoicing, about this 
beautiful neighbor of ours with the 
tragic history, — the goodly place 
where no one is in an unseemly 
haste and where unconcern for life's 
exigencies is in inverse ratio to the 
need. 

And sometimes, to the poor Amer- 
ican pilgrim, jaded with many anxi- 
eties, with many ambitions, that 
beautiful unconcern is a wondrous 
tonic. He has rushed through the 
years quite too contemptuous of the 
Ideal Existence according to certain 
old Greeks who knew all about it 
and of modern Mexicans who now 
know. Really, in these days the ant 
should occasionally go to the slug- 
gard and she should consider his ways 
and be wise. 



204 Mexico City 

Poverty in rags, against a pink 
background of crumbling wall and 
with a hedge of aloe, a tangle of 
tropic greenery and mossy church - 
domes in the purple distance, seems 
to fascinate some people in a de- 
gree extraordinary. 

But just let the wretched beggars 
be decently clothed, freshen the wall 
with whitewash, cut down the weeds, 
stretch a barbed-wire fence and 
cover the shaky old church with 
shingles or corrugated-iron — and those 
very people promptly cease their 
rhapsodizings and grieve in a way 
quite incomprehensible to the mil- 
lion. 

Yet am 1, I here shamelessly and 
impenitently confess it, one of the 
mourning incomprehensibles — one of 



An Idler's Note-Book 205 

those who only with reluctance will 
acknowledge that Poetry is really a 
poor and forsaken old thing. Or 
just a legend. 

But Progress, this great, blatant 
march — though there be many notes 
harsh and discordant — must really 
not I suppose be regretted nor held 
in disesteem; for we have many 
times assured our unhappy selves 
that Progress means many splendid 
things, such as a sturdier lower 
class, an enlightened, a well-fed 
one. 

Nevertheless, the unfortunates who 
have all along suspected that for 
Commerce and Industry must we 
everywhere forego Beauty and Poetry 
will shortly languish. They will 
mourn anew and of all creatures be 



2o6 Mexico City 

the most dejected and wretched. 
For Mexico, the serene land where 
unreproached many hitherto did spend 
in pleasant dreamings their little 
hour ere they were hurried else- 
where, has at last been entered by 
the enemy. The shout of the van- 
dal has already gone up. His ax 
and his pick are never silent now; 
his bucket of blue whitewash is as 
inexhaustible as the sea. 

The years are relentless, and they 
will bring many changes and all 
those nerve-wrecking- things known 
to us poor moderns as Advantages. 
Will Mexico be happier then? And 
better? Or merely less lovely? 

One can learn vastly important 
things down there in Mexico. 1 



An Idler's Note-Book 207 

learned that to idle by the wayside 
was as good as to try to get as 
miich money as Hetty Green and 
that to tranquilly dream epics and 
lyrics (principally lyrics) was as 
good as to be as mentally restless 
as a Corliss engine. 

Ah! surely it was only when 
America was younger and less com- 
fortable that it was right to lead a 
life of such furious industry — to look 
upon Pleasure only as a heresy. 

So I did strike my breast and 
cry Alack! when, in the Land of 
the Noontide Calm, I heard that 
penetrating voice of Dame Duty; 
and, with all those tender farewells 
of mine unsaid, with memories of 
many marvelous things and with a 



2o8 Mexico City 

readjusted Theory of Averages, I 
turned and came again into my 
own country. 



THE END 



31^77 



